Harry Potter and the War in the Virtual Lunar Seas
by Konoha's Demon Child
Summary: (Fate/Extra crossover) Waking up in a strange school, a certain black-haired, green-eyed child finds himself stuck in a kill or be killed tournament with a single wish as the prize. With a kind young woman who calls herself a Servant at his side, can he survive until the end or will he be deleted like so many others?
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Fate/Extra. Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling and the Fate franchise is owned by Type-Moon.**

* * *

 **Prologue**

Green eyes blearily blinked open as their owner returned to wakefulness. A child that appeared to be no older than eight wearing worn clothes that were clearly more than a couple of sizes too big slowly sat up and looked around at his surroundings. He was sat in the middle of a small bunch of bushes with a couple of trees and a lamppost mixed in as well. In front of him was a three-storey building that didn't seem at all familiar to him yet he was fairly sure it was a school for some strange reason.

Understandably confused by his current situation, the green-eyed boy tried to recall how he had ended up in the bushes only for a crippling pain to shoot through his head the moment he attempted to call up the relevant memories while his vision went a little fuzzy as though he was looking at everything through a thin layer of static. The agony was such that he let out a loud yelp and fell backwards as his arms were no longer prdopping him up due to his hands automatically clutching his forehead in a futile attempt to dull the sudden headache.

After what might have been a few seconds or a few hours, the pain had lessened to a relatively minor but constant ache and the child realised that he had absolutely no idea how he had arrived at this school. In fact, he couldn't remember anything apart from his own name and even that wasn't something he was entirely sure about considering the complete lack of other memories.

"Harry Potter. My name is Harry Potter," the black-haired boy kept repeating to himself under his breath, worried that that too would disappear from his memory if he didn't keep thinking about it.

Suddenly, a bell rang out from the school in front of him and, seeing flickers of movement out of the corner of his eye, the now-named Harry quickly ran off to the side. He darted past a vending machine and towards the small building on his left, tripping through the open doorway just as a group of teenagers in brown uniforms walked by the area he had been mere moments before. He didn't know anything about this place other than it seemed to be a school and that something seemed strange about it so the glasses-wearing boy was opting to be cautious for the time being until he had a better understanding of what was going on since he had no idea how the people here would react to his sudden appearance.

"Hey little boy, are you lost? You're a bit young for this school."

Harry jumped when he heard the voice behind him. He had been so focused on avoiding the people outside that he hadn't paid much attention to the room he had sneaked into to hide. Turning around, the child saw a somewhat plain-looking teenaged girl with short brown hair in odd clothes standing a few feet away with a really long bow in one hand and an arrow in the other.

"I think so. I don't know where I am or how I got here," Harry said as he kept an eye on the armed teen's weapon. There didn't seem to be any hostility in her voice but she was still holding something that could easily kill him if she wanted to so he discreetly started backing up towards the door in case she chose to use it.

The girl seemed a bit confused at the reaction since he wasn't being as subtle as he thought he was but she quickly figured out the cause when she saw that the boy's eyes were locked on her bow. In an attempt to reassure him, she slowly crouched down, placed her bow and arrow on the floor and moved away from them as she stood up again.

"It's alright. I'm not going to hurt you. I was just in the middle of practice when I heard you come in," she explained, gesturing behind her with her gloved right hand where Harry could see a handful of round targets at the far end of the building, one of which had several arrows sticking out around the middle. "Anyway, this is the archery range at Tsukumihara Academy. Does that help?"

"No, I've never heard of it. Where is it?" the black-haired child replied. The name sounded foreign, which was an odd thought considering that he couldn't remember where he was from, but didn't really give him any clues as to what was going on.

"It's..." the girl started, only to trail off after a moment as she frowned in confusion. "I don't know... Why don't I know?" she muttered to herself. "This is my third year here so why can't I remember where the school is?" The brunette groaned slightly as a hand went up to absently massage her temple while a bell rang out from the main building. "Sorry kid but I've got to go get changed into my uniform before class starts. I'm sorry I wasn't much help," she mumbled, her thoughts clearly elsewhere as she headed out of the archery range while removing her chest protector and brushing a bit of fluff off of her dark hakama.

"Wait..." Harry called out but the teen didn't seem to hear him and she quickly disappeared from sight. He followed after her to try and ask her other things like the reason why everything was fuzzy but, when he got outside, there was nobody around. Looking around the deserted school yard, the boy caught a glimpse of red up on the roof out of the corner of his eye but there was nothing there when he looked again so he dismissed it as his eyes playing tricks on him due to the weird situation.

It only took a few moments to find the main gate and the green-eyed Potter quickly ran towards it, wanting to get away from the strange school that was filled with wrongness. However, just as he reached out to the metal handle in order to open it, he was overcome with an unexplainable sense of dread that practically screamed at him to not touch it. Pulling his hand back as though it had been shocked, he just stared at the gate for a moment, wondering why he had felt like leaving the school would be the worst thing he could possibly do. It was at that point that he noticed something else unusual and that was the fact that he couldn't see a single person beyond the gate nor could he hear anything in the distance, almost as though there simply wasn't anything outside of the school.

Deciding to listen to the weird feeling of doom, Harry opted not to open the gate and instead have another look at the campus that he had found himself in. He still couldn't see anybody since all the students were presumably in class right then so he decided to just wander around for a bit and see if he could find something that might help him figure out what was going on. Walking past the vending machine he had seen earlier, the boy stopped since he was feeling a bit thirsty but a check of his pockets told him that he didn't have any money on him so he was forced to give it a miss.

* * *

Half an hour later and Harry had pretty much covered the entirety of the school's currently empty grounds. Unfortunately, he had been unable to find anything that might explain how he had gotten there or why he couldn't remember anything. He had stumbled across a large chapel near a nice-looking fountain around the back of the tall building but the area had been closed for renovations according to a sign so he hadn't been able to get too close. The child had also found another gate right at the back past the chapel and a side gate next to the archery range yet the weird feeling of dread had returned the moment he had gotten near either of them so he left them both alone while wondering why it seemed like he wasn't supposed to leave the school even though he probably wasn't a student there due to how young he was.

Since his exploration of outside didn't turn up anything, Harry decided that the only thing left would be to try inside the school itself. With any luck, he might stumble across the girl from earlier since she had been nice enough to try and help him even if she was clearly distracted towards the end of their brief conversation. Walking through the front entrance of what was presumably the main building, the black-haired child quickly noticed that the corridor he was in was empty of students, which he took to mean that they were all still in class.

Suddenly, Harry heard a door shutting directly behind him and the boy literally jumped in surprise. Looking back, he saw a tall man standing there. The black-haired man was wearing a large black coat with a high fur-lined collar and he was staring at Harry with dead eyes and a blank expression on his face. For some reason, the stranger's mere presence put the glasses-wearing child on edge and his instincts were screaming at him to both run away as quickly as possible and stay perfectly still to try and avoid being noticed.

"Hmm? A late arrival?" the man mumbled to himself. "No, that shouldn't be possible so you must have been hiding somewhere until now. You're not on the list but to have avoided detection until the final day of the preliminaries..." he trailed off there, possibly weighing up his options. "I suppose I should test you."

Before the child could so much as blink, something hit him hard in the stomach and he collapsed to the floor. As darkness started to encroach on his vision, Harry coughed violently in response to the blow while his mind tried to figure out what had just happened; the man hadn't moved a muscle but there was nobody else around to have struck him. Unfortunately, any other thoughts on the matter were lost as his consciousness escaped him and everything went black.

* * *

When Harry eventually came to, the pain in his gut from the intimidating man's strike immediately made itself known to him, being more than strong enough to drown out the constant headache he had been feeling since earlier. Cautiously opening one eye for a quick look around, the green-eyed child saw that he was still in the same ground floor corridor which was still empty except for himself as the violent adult was nowhere to be seen. As he slowly climbed to his feet, he tried to figure out what he should do. Trying to leave through any of the gates he had found seemed like a really bad idea, even though he wasn't quite sure why he felt like that, but staying in this strange school was just plain dangerous, especially if he encountered the same guy that had previously attacked him.

Since he wouldn't achieve anything by just standing there, the young child decided that he might as well carry on looking around the school. The right side of the corridor didn't turn up anything since the doors were all locked so he moved on to the left side. There were only three rooms on that side and few very quick glances through the windows showed that they were all classrooms full of students in brown who were all paying attention to the teachers at the front of the room.

Not wanting to disrupt the lessons despite his confusing situation, Harry turned around with the intention of exploring the next floor only to stop when he saw a teenaged girl with long purple hair reaching down to her ankles with a red ribbon just above her left ear and a white jacket covering the same brown uniform he had seen on others earlier staring at him in surprise from the other end of the corridor. The black-haired child was about to go over to her to see if she could help him figure things out when the school's bell rang again and he heard people moving around in the rooms on his right. As one of the doors started to open, the young Potter heard the emotionless voice of the man in black from earlier drift out of the classroom and he quickly ducked around the corner at the end of the hallway to hide before his attacker had a chance to notice him as he really didn't want to get hit again.

Harry listened as several dozen teens all disappeared off in the other direction, many of them chatting about random things ranging from class and a tiger of some sort all the way to what they were going to have for lunch or what they had planned for after school was over. Once the last of the voices had gone out of earshot, he risked a glance around the corner but immediately pulled his head back when he saw the man in black leaving one of the classrooms. He didn't think he had been seen since the adult hadn't been looking in his direction but the child didn't want to risk being found so he quickly looked around for somewhere to hide. It was only then that he realised the corridor was a dead-end with nothing but a small fire extinguisher and a set of lockers about the same height as him.

Unable to find a viable hiding place, Harry decided to take another quick peek to see if he actually needed to. When he did, he saw the man in black still there talking to a blond boy in red for a moment before the pair quite literally vanished into thin air. As he tried to rationalise the clearly impossible sight, his headache intensified and the world seemed to tilt ever so slightly. Overcome by the strange sensation, the glasses-wearing child leaned against the wall next to the lockers and let himself slide down until he was sat on the floor.

"I need to get out of here," Harry muttered to himself. He still didn't have a clue what was going on but it was definitely too strange to be a regular school since people were not supposed to disappear without a trace like he had just witnessed.

"Huh?" The boy quickly turned to the right when he thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye. A proper look at the empty wall showed that there didn't appear to be anything there but something still seemed to be off so he got up and wandered over. Running his hand over the smooth surface also indicated that the wall was just a wall but that nagging feeling remained and his head started throbbing while the static covering his vision became even more prominent. "What's going on?"

A single blink was all it took for things to change as, where there had been a solid wall mere moments ago, there was now what looked to be a fire exit, complete with a green sign above it. Understandably confused, Harry ran a hand over the door that had appeared from nowhere, feeling the change in texture as his fingers passed over the frame and onto the wall.

"It's real?" Harry thought about his options. On the one hand, a mysteriously appearing door was right up there with mysteriously disappearing people in terms of strangeness, which he knew was really bad even though he didn't remember exactly why, and there was no telling where it would actually go. On the other hand, something kept screaming at him to not leave the school through the gates whenever he got close to one and the terrifying man that had attacked him for no apparent reason could potentially come back at any time. Eventually deciding that whatever was beyond the door couldn't be worse than staying where he was, he steeled himself for whatever might lie ahead and passed through the door.

* * *

While he hadn't been sure what to expect on the other side, the room Harry found himself in was surprising simply due to how normal it appeared, especially since the static-like fuzziness in his vision was no longer present. It looked to be a simple storage room with random boxes filled with rolled up sheets of paper on the floor near the side walls and there was a large blackboard to his left as well. It actually somehow took him a couple of seconds to notice the rather glaring oddities though how he had managed to not see the large gap in the far wall straight away he had no idea. It wasn't simply a hole that a door or big window might go in but rather it seemed like an entrance to another world entirely, what with the impenetrable darkness beyond, the randomly shifting edges and the weird glowing bubbles rising up from the floor on either side.

"Welcome, potential Master." A man's voice came from nowhere and echoed throughout the room.

Harry quickly looked around to try and find the source but failed to see anyone there other than himself and some strange man-sized mannequin that was standing to the side of the gap. When the mannequin suddenly moved in a rather threatening matter, the green-eyed Potter jumped back from it but started to relax again when it didn't do anything else afterwards, though he kept an eye on it in case it did decide to move again.

"That effigy with you is your sword and shield for what lies ahead. It will move in response to your commands. Now then, please proceed. The truth that you seek lies ahead."

"What's going on?" Harry shouted at the disembodied voice. This whole situation was really starting to freak him out, and the effigy was also making him uncomfortable even though it wasn't moving right then, but he was trying his best to not let it show. When he didn't get any reply, he decided that he might actually be better off in the school so he turned to leave only to freeze when he saw that the door was no longer there. Panicking due to the door's sudden disappearance, the boy quickly ran over to the now-empty wall and ran his hand over its smooth surface to confirm that the door did indeed no longer exist.

"If I go through there, can I go home?" Harry asked the mysterious voice. He didn't get an answer but he didn't think he had any other option so he cautiously approached the gap in the far wall and poked a finger through it. When nothing bad happened, he took a deep breath and stepped into the darkness, not noticing that the effigy followed him.

On the other side of the strange gap of darkness in the wall was something that could only really be described as a path made of glowing rectangles in a seemingly endless void of black that stretched out further than Harry could see. Once again, the sheer bizarreness of the situation resulted in the child trying to go back to the last room but there was no exit behind him so he had no choice but to move forward, taking care not to get too close to the path's edges to avoid falling. It was during this impromptu escape attempt that Harry became aware of the creepy mannequin from the previous room directly behind him. He took a step away from it but it simply took one forwards towards him. That was when he remembered what the bodiless voice had said about it.

"It will move in response to your commands," he repeated before looking at the effigy's featureless head. "Walk in front of me," he instructed, pointing behind him in the direction that the path led. When it didn't immediately move, Harry thought the unseen male had lied to him about the doll following orders but then it clumsily walked around him before stopping in the middle of the path, presumably to wait for him to get moving again.

Satisfied that the weird effigy wouldn't be able to suddenly attack him from behind without any warning, Harry started walking forwards again, this time following the effigy instead of the other way around even though it did stop whenever he did despite never looking back at him. As he kept walking, he realised that the featureless black expanse around him had started to change. The black was slowly replaced with a blurry blue colour and various glowing blue cubes popped up every now and then on either side of the path while smaller yellow cubes occasionally shot past.

Eventually, after walking for what felt like at least half an hour, Harry somehow ended up in a weird circular room of some sort. He had no idea how he had wound up there since he hadn't seen it coming but he had pretty much given up questioning what he saw by this point to avoid potential headaches. The room he was in strangely reminded him of a church or chapel for some reason, probably due the three huge stained-glass windows in front of him. The walls were either so black that nothing else could be determined about them or they were just shadows that encircled everything else, he honestly didn't know. The floor had a fancy design to it as well but the boy found his eyes instead drawn to the girl in brown lying in the middle of the chamber with another effigy in a heap next to her.

At first glance, he thought it was the teen he had met at the archery range but a closer look showed that, while she appeared similar, it was a different person as she seemed a bit shorter and the hair was both noticeably longer and a slightly lighter shade. Crouching down next to her, Harry gently shook her shoulder to try and wake her only to pull it back a moment later when he realised how cold she was. That was also when he noticed the red-stained rip in her clothes right where her heart was and he quickly looked away from that area when he caught a glimpse of what looked like bone amidst the large amount of crimson liquid.

"Hey, wake up," he pleaded, shaking her a bit more forcefully in a desperate attempt to avoid the truth. When he got absolutely no response from her, he couldn't really deny it any longer and he quickly shuffled backwards away from the corpse.

It was at that precise moment that the second mannequin clambered to its needle-like feet with a clatter and drove its equally needle-like arm into the shoulder of Harry's own effigy. Seeing the attack, coupled with the fear caused by the discovery of the dead student, Harry ran in the opposite direction as fast as his legs could carry him only to trip over a large brown lump and fall to the floor, his glasses flying from his face in the process. Fumbling around in a frantic attempt to find his taped up spectacles, he froze in pure terror when his hand found a red puddle and he saw the blurry but unmistakable sight of another unmoving teen, this one probably a male, staring back at him.

A clattering sound resulted in Harry turning just in time to see his effigy falling to the ground in pieces, it having been unable to do anything to defend itself without anybody issuing commands. From what little he could tell with his poor eyesight, the other effigy didn't look like it had taken any damage during the short and heavily one-sided slaughter and the young Potter watched in horror as it turned its attention to him. Fearing for his life, he clumsily shuffled backwards as his would-be executioner approached only for his back to hit a soft mound that he had a distinct feeling was composed of yet more dead bodies. With nowhere else to run, the boy could do nothing but watch as the effigy raised its arm with the clear intention of killing him.

"Stay away!" he yelled as he closed his eyes and curled up in a futile attempt to delay the inevitable.

Had he kept his eyes open, Harry would have seen the advancing doll suddenly get thrown backwards by an invisible force with enough strength to hit the shadow-like wall at the other end of the room. It wasn't just the effigy that had been affected either as the bodies next to him as well as the dozens of others that he had yet to notice were all violently pushed away from him with far more force than would be considered respectful for the deceased.

When several seconds went by without any pain, the suddenly exhausted boy looked up in confusion that only increased at the sight of the empty space around him. A clattering drew his attention to the far end of the room and he could just about make out something moving. The noises it made pretty much confirmed that it was the hostile effigy getting up for round two and the panicking boy curled up again in fear.

He didn't want to die. Whatever had happened to spare him moments ago probably wouldn't happen again. That meant that the deadly mannequin would kill him like the students he had found. Was this it? Was this how he was going to die? He still had no idea how he had ended up in this weird place or what his life had been like before. He could hear the effigy getting closer. Only a few more seconds and it would probably be close enough to end him.

"Please! I want to live!"

"Fear not, child! I shall save you!" Harry's final frantic plea for survival was answered by the declaration of a young woman. The words were accompanied by the sound of breaking glass as bright light cut through the gloom of the chamber.

Looking up at the completely unexpected sound, Harry saw the pale effigy right in front of him, reaching out with one of its sharp arms. However, before it could hit him, he heard a barely audible twang and the mannequin was thrown to one side. Turning to face the direction he thought the sound had come from, the child could make out what looked to be a person standing in the middle of the room holding a long black staff in their left hand. Without his glasses, he couldn't pick out all of the details but the newcomer definitely wasn't another effigy.

Based on the voice, the stranger was probably a woman and he could tell that her clothes were mostly a mix of green and black while long straw-coloured hair extended down to her waist. Something seemed a little odd about her appearance but, due to how blurry everything was, Harry simply couldn't figure out what it was right then. Without warning, she raised the object in her left hand while pulling her right hand back, which made him realise that it was actually a bow rather than a staff, before another faint twang reached his ears and something shot over his head.

Looking back, Harry saw the effigy slowly getting up again with something long and thin, probably an arrow, sticking out of its right leg. He tried to scramble backwards to get away again but suddenly found himself being scooped up in the arms of the woman that had come to his rescue. She quickly leapt back to the middle of the room to put some distance between her and the effigy and gently set him down again, her long bow reappearing in her hand the moment it was empty.

"Fighting before the contract has been properly established is a bit unorthodox but I guess it can't be helped," she absently commented while readying another shot.

"Contract?" the boy asked as he tried, but failed, to get to his feet. He didn't have a clue what she was talking about and the exhaustion that had unexpectedly descended upon him shortly before was starting to take its toll.

"The contract between Master and Servant," the archer explained as she loosed her arrow. "If you'll accept me as your Servant then I promise to protect you with my life," she declared before muttering something else that he barely caught. "Even if you don't, I'll still destroy this pathetic excuse for an effigy that dared to harm an innocent child."

"I'll accept you," Harry replied after a moment's thought. He still didn't understand what was going on but having someone around to protect him would undoubtedly be a good thing and she seemed knowledgable on the topic so she could probably explain it to him later.

"Very well." Even though she wasn't facing him and he likely wouldn't have been able to make out her facial features properly even if she was, the black-haired boy had the distinct feeling that she was smiling. "I am Servant Archer and my arrows shall strike down anything that threatens you."

As she spoke, Harry let out a yell as he felt a sudden warmth on the back of his right hand before a sharp stabbing pain assaulted him. He quickly looked at the area in question and saw an oddly-shaped red mark. Thinking that he had somehow started bleeding, he tried to wipe off the presumed blood but couldn't feel anything other than skin.

"Those are your Command Spells. They are proof of both our pact and our participation in the Moon Cell's Holy Grail War," the recently named Archer informed him as a final arrow struck the hostile effigy with enough force that it was ripped to pieces.

Unfortunately, the explanation was lost on him as the mark had gotten warmer and warmer since appearing. Coupled with the mysterious exhaustion he had been feeling since shortly before Archer appeared, it proved too much for him to handle and everything went black. The last thing he was aware of before consciousness completely escaped him was Archer's arms catching him before he could collapse.

"Rest now, Master. The War is just beginning and things will only get tougher from here."

* * *

 **A/N: I know I really shouldn't be posting a new story considering how long it's been since I last updated either of my other two but this idea has been bugging me since I started replaying Fate/Extra back in September last year after I found out, in the space of about ten minutes, that not only is there going to be a Fate/Extra anime starting sometime around the end of 2017 but also that there was going to be a follow-up game called Fate/Extella (which I have since bought and completed barring a couple of the harder to get trophies).**

 **Unlike the many other times that random story ideas pop into my head, this one has been refusing to leave me alone, to the point that it is interfering with my ability to concentrate on my other stories. Normally, I can get the idea out just by writing a few notes but this was being particularly stubborn so I finally gave up last month and started writing it out properly. On the plus side, I have a bunch of notes for this (and I even know how it is going to end unlike my other stories where I only have a vague idea at best) and Fate/Extra's Holy Grail War has a rather rigid structure (it's a seven round elimination tournament) so it hopefully shouldn't be too difficult to write, though I am still not completely decided on a couple of the Servants Harry will be facing so I need to get thinking about that.**

 **EDIT, PLEASE READ:** Since I've been getting some comments/complaints of Harry being too weak, I'm adding this here to address the issue. Firstly, there are three main elements to the plot of this story: the actual Holy Grail War, Harry's relationship with Archer and Harry's development. While I will admit that Harry is pretty much useless as a Master at the start, since he's only eight and doesn't even know that magic exists, he isn't going to stay that way throughout the story (as should be obvious by his development being listed as one of the focuses of the story in the previous sentence). There is a tendency for Fate protagonists to start off weak only to develop their abilities and general competency quite well over a relatively short period of time and Harry is going to be no different. He's not going to be OP and able to take out Servants single-handedly (unless he gets very, very lucky) but I'm planning for him to become just as capable as any other Master by the end of the Holy Grail War.


	2. Week 1, Day 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Fate/Extra. Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling and the Fate franchise belongs to Type-Moon.**

* * *

 **Week 1, Day 1** **(Masters Remaining: 128)**

"But I didn't climb anything! I was just trying to jump behind the bins," a certain black-haired child yelled through the locked door of the cupboard under the stairs where he slept. The only response he got was the sound of heavy footsteps receding into the distance as Uncle Vernon left, the large man not wanting anything to do with his freakish nephew.

Lying down on the old lumpy bed, Harry Potter sighed to himself in annoyance. He had gotten into trouble at school earlier that day because one of the teachers had found him on the roof of the kitchens which led to the headmistress calling Aunt Petunia in. When he had gotten home, he had been on the receiving end of a very loud telling off, which his cousin Dudley thought was hilarious, and then Uncle Vernon had practically thrown him into his cupboard without any food as punishment, locking the door afterwards to make sure he didn't sneak out to the kitchen later.

The eight-year-old sighed again. Despite the teachers' conclusions, he hadn't actually climbed the building in question and instead he had simply tried to hide from Dudley and his gang behind some bins, like he had just tried to explain, but nobody believed him. He hadn't really expected the teachers to believe him, mainly because he couldn't actually explain how he gotten there other than maybe the wind catching him mid-jump and blowing him up, but most families would at least give one of their own the benefit of the doubt in such a situation.

A grumble from his stomach caused Harry to get up again, easily ignoring the pain in his shoulder from when his uncle had manhandled him and hoping it wouldn't bruise too badly, and he started rummaging around under his bed for the small amount of food he had secreted from the kitchen a little while ago for just such an occasion. It wasn't anywhere near enough to deal with his hunger but it should hopefully tide him over until all three Dursleys were asleep, at which point he could take advantage of the slightly broken lock on his cupboard and sneak out to get something else.

While he waited, the boy idly started wondering why his relatives, and he used the term quite loosely considering that they clearly didn't like him and he wasn't exactly fond of them because of it, kept him around. They would surely be much happier if he wasn't there, though Dudley would probably miss being able to pick on him, and Harry himself would also be happier pretty much anywhere else. The more he thought about it, the more appealing the idea of not living with the Dursleys became; he wouldn't have to deal with Dudley's bullying or Aunt Petunia's frequent complaints about everything he did or Uncle Vernon's harsh words and rough treatment of him whenever he actually bothered to acknowledge the boy's existence, which was usually only when the large man was either berating him or punishing him for some minor or imaginary infraction.

With his mind made up, Harry tipped the contents of his school bag onto the bed and started shoving some of his clothes inside, generally picking those that were only slightly too big for him rather than the ones that were large enough for him to use as an impromptu sleeping bag. The packing didn't take all that long, mainly because he just didn't have many clothes or other possessions since the Dursleys never spent money on him if they could help it. Once he was finished, the child plopped down on his bed again and waited for the other three occupants of the house to turn in for the night.

It only took another half an hour or so for his relatives to head to bed and, after waiting a further thirty minutes to ensure that they were asleep, Harry fiddled with the lock on his cupboard with practised ease and the door soon swung open. The green-eyed child silently made his way into the kitchen and, using the light of the moon through the window to avoid having to switch the kitchen light on, he filled the rest of the space in his bag with a loaf of bread, a bottle of water and a few of the packets of biscuits that Aunt Petunia had bought in preparation of Dudley's upcoming birthday. Now that he had gotten some supplies, he unlocked the front door as quietly as he could using Uncle Vernon's keys that he had taken from the small bowl next to the telephone and slipped out into the night, intent on enjoying a life without the Dursleys.

After a good fifteen minutes of walking, during which time he had gotten several streets away from Privet Drive, Harry was starting to think that running away like this might not have been a particularly smart idea. He hadn't really put much thought into where he was going to go, since he had been more focused on the idea of no more Dursleys, and he couldn't just keep wandering around. Sighing, the young Potter turned around and started making his way back; with any luck, he could sneak back in without waking his relatives and they would never know what he had done.

He was just turning onto the next road when it happened. A large and very vicious-sounding Rottweiler, that Harry occasionally saw sitting behind a gate barking at everyone that went past while he was on his way to school, came running out from a nearby driveway without any warning and headed straight towards him. Since he knew that the snarling dog didn't have any qualms about biting people, as one of the other kids at school once claimed that he had almost lost his hand when he had tried to stroke it while it was sleeping, he did what any scared kid confronted with a savage animal would do. He ran in the opposite direction as fast as possible.

The black-haired boy was vaguely aware of a man yelling in the background, possibly the dog's owner trying to call it back, but he was far more concerned with getting as far away from the Rottweiler as he could. Unfortunately, while Harry could run pretty fast if he wanted to, he was nowhere near quick enough to be able to outrun the pursuing animal that was quickly catching up to him so magic that he didn't even know existed intervened and he disappeared from the area with a deafening crack, leaving only his backpack behind which was promptly ripped apart by the dog as it searched for the food it could smell.

Reappearing in some dark and dingy alley with an equally deafening crack, Harry slumped against a wall, thoroughly exhausted from his incredibly impressive act of accidental magic. He idly gazed up at the bright moon above and mumbled his thoughts to himself as sleep started to claim him.

"I just want to be happy for once."

* * *

The sound of birds chirping accompanied Harry's slow return to consciousness but the boy in question was more interested in staying where he was and snuggling under the covers since his old and knackered mattress was feeling unusually comfortable right then and it would be a shame to waste the opportunity for some proper sleep. As he did, he thought about the odd dream he had had in which he had tried to run away from the Dursleys only to narrowly avoid getting attacked by a Rottweiler and then he had somehow ended up in some strange school where he had been attacked by both a scary man in black and then a mannequin only to be saved by a woman with a bow who had promised to protect him with her life.

It had definitely been one of his weirder dreams and that was saying something since he had also dreamed about flying motorbikes and playing with a stag and a big black dog before. Still, running away from the Dursleys wasn't necessarily a bad idea so the young orphan made a mental note to come back to that at some point and refine it. Curling up under the duvet, Harry tried to will himself back to sleep. He really didn't feel like getting up yet and, if he was lucky, he might even dream about that woman again. He knew she wasn't real but it was nice to have somebody so willing to be nice to him, even if it was just in his dreams.

Unfortunately for the child, the birds' singing carried on with no indication that they were going to stop anytime soon, which was impressive considering that he couldn't usually hear things like that from his cupboard so they must be putting in quite a bit of effort for some reason. Since he doubted that he'd be able to get any sleep with the noise, Harry decided that he might as well start moving, especially since Aunt Petunia would probably start banging on his door soon anyway, so he slowly emerged from under the covers and started fumbling around above his head for the small shelf that he kept his glasses on.

It was only when his hand hit a metal headboard and then the solid wall right behind it that Harry actually opened his eyes to see what he was doing, since neither of those things should be there. The moment he did, the child froze in confusion as he was most definitely not in his cupboard. Without his glasses, he couldn't make out details but everything was very white, from the walls and ceiling to the bed he was lying in and the curtain that was drawn to his right.

"Where am I?" Harry mumbled as he sat up even though he didn't know if there was anybody there to answer him.

"Good morning, Master. It's nice to see that you're finally awake since you slept for so long," a kind and somewhat familiar-sounding voice spoke up from his left. "To answer your question, this is the nurse's office. You were brought here after you collapsed yesterday and I have been watching over you since."

Upon hearing the response, Harry's head immediately turned to face the direction it had come from, just in time to see the blurry yet unmistakable form of the woman from his recent dream materialise out of nowhere next to his bed, clearly leaning against the wall. She reached a gloved hand out towards him and the boy felt her gently place his glasses in his left hand. Since he had yet to actually get a proper look at her, the green-eyed Potter quickly slipped the spectacles on but he only managed to get a brief glimpse of a black metallic clawed glove with a soft-looking red lining on the inside of the hand before she disappeared again.

"Huh? Where did you go?" Harry asked as he looked around the room for the woman who had saved his life.

"Please relax, Master. I'm still here but it would be best for me to remain out of sight right now since we are not alone in here," she replied, her voice still coming from the same direction even though she was no longer visible.

"You can turn invisible," Harry muttered in awe before the rest of her comment sunk in. "There's somebody else here?" he asked as he started looking around again.

"Strictly speaking, it's not actually invisibility but rather I have simply shifted to a spiritual form like all Servants are capable of doing. I am incapable of interacting with things in this state but it is useful for staying by your side without having to worry about being seen or heard by enemy Masters." The explanation was a bit difficult for Harry to understand so he just decided to settle for invisibility since it was simpler. "And yes, there is another Master present and I believe she is in the bed next to yours. She came in unconscious several hours after you did and, since I have not heard any sounds other than breathing, I think she's still sleeping but her Servant is probably keeping guard much like I have been."

"Master? Servant?" the black-haired child asked in confusion. The unfamiliar terms reminded him that he had absolutely no idea what was going on and he thought that the only reason he was as calm as he was was because of the comforting presence of his saviour right next to his bed; well, that and he still wasn't entirely convinced that this whole thing wasn't just some incredibly bizarre dream even though he really didn't think he was imaginative enough to come up with something like this.

"You don't know of Servants or your role as a Master? Those are among the most basic of basics in the Holy Grail War," the invisible woman said. When Harry's expression of confusion increased, she carried on. "It appears that you do not know of the Holy Grail War either. That's strange. Is something wrong with your memory? I didn't think it was possible to enter this tournament unintentionally."

"I don't know how I got here," Harry replied. "I was trying to run away from my relatives and..." he trailed off when he realised what he was saying. If this wasn't a dream and he had somehow managed to end up somewhere else then would he get sent back to the Dursleys? He didn't want that so it would be better if he didn't mention them. "I don't know anything about a tournament or where I am. What's going on?"

"I see," the hidden woman replied, putting aside the child's runaway status for another time since it would probably be a delicate subject that she would have to be careful with. "While I'm happy to answer any questions you have, it would be better if we were somewhere more private so that your lack of knowledge doesn't become well-known."

At that point, the conversation was abruptly interrupted by a short beeping noise coming from the small table next to Harry's bed. Leaning over to have a look, the boy saw a small flat rectangular object that was pretty much a palm-sized screen and not much else. The screen was currently turned on, though he had no idea what was powering it since there was no cable and it was too thin to hold any batteries that he had ever seen, and there was a short and simple message on display.

"The next combatants will be announced on the second floor bulletin board," Harry read aloud after picking the weird device up. "What does it mean 'combatants' and what is this?" he asked, indicating the item in his hand.

"That is called a terminal and it relays messages from the system. The nurse left it there for you when you were brought in," the unseen archer explained. "I'm surprised you don't seem to recognise it though since my understanding is that it resembles a modern-day smartphone for ease of use."

"Smartphone?" Harry repeated uncertainly since it definitely didn't look like any phone he had ever seen before; it was far too small and he couldn't see any buttons except a single one on the side.

"It doesn't matter. The important thing is that the notification means our first opponent in the tournament has been announced so we should go and have a look at the board and then we can find somewhere private so I can explain things to you."

With the course of action seemingly decided, Harry felt the kind woman's presence move from his left towards the foot of his bed. Not wanting her to leave him on his own, the child quickly got out of the bed and followed her after straightening the covers again. As he did, his curiosity got the better of him and he poked his head around the curtain to have a look at the other person who was apparently in the room. Just as the invisible Servant suggested, the teenaged girl was currently asleep in the bed and he quickly pulled away again when he felt some sort of minor hostility being directed at him from her general direction.

Before anything else could happen, Harry heard a door slide open and he turned around to see the girl with the really long purple hair and the white coat that he had briefly seen the previous day. When she saw that he was awake, she walked straight towards him and his body tensed slightly since he had no idea who she was.

"Ah, you're finally awake? I'm so relieved," she said kindly, at which point she noticed that Harry seemed unsure about how to react to her so she stopped a couple of feet away to give him some room. "My name is Sakura Matou and I am the custodial AI in charge of monitoring the health of Masters during the course of the Holy Grail War. You were unconscious from exhaustion when you came in but you seem fine now and you don't have any injuries so feel free to leave whenever you want. Also, all of your memories have been restored by the SERAPH so don't worry. Any magi that seek the Holy Grail have their memories suppressed and are given those of a student. Only Masters who managed to recover themselves are allowed to enter the main tournament. Now that you have regained your memories, please review them to make sure they're complete."

"Uh, okay," Harry replied uncertainly. He didn't have a clue what she was talking about for the most part but it seemed like she was explaining why he hadn't been able to remember anything about himself the previous day. "So you're the school nurse?" he asked for clarification since 'custodial AI' didn't mean anything to him but he couldn't think of anything else it could refer to.

"I suppose that would be an accurate enough description," Sakura replied after a moment's thought. She then caught sight of the terminal in Harry's hand. "I see you found the terminal I left near your bed, that's good. You should make sure that you pay attention to any messages you get so you don't miss anything important. That reminds me..." She fished out another terminal from inside her coat and made her way over towards her other patient with a quick "Good luck in the tournament".

"She's young for a nurse," the young Potter muttered to himself as he watched her go. She looked like she should still be a student yet she was apparently good enough to work as a nurse.

"Don't judge her by her appearance. She is an AI created for the Holy Grail War so her abilities regarding medical treatments are undoubtedly of high quality," his invisible companion said from next to him. "Anyway, we should get going. The sooner we know the identity of our opponent, the better."

* * *

As he left the nurse's office, Harry found himself in what seemed to be the same ground floor corridor that he had been wandering around the previous day. Unlike last time, there were several students in brown uniforms dotted around with one or two in black mixed in as well as a few adults that looked very out of place, especially the woman in the clown outfit. Some were chatting in small groups, a few were talking to empty spaces next to them which the boy assumed meant they were talking to invisible people like the one accompanying him and a couple were just standing around doing their own thing.

Since he had been a bit preoccupied the previous day, this was the first time that Harry actually got a decent look at the various students and he couldn't help but make an observation that struck him as rather unusual.

"Everyone looks really similar," he mumbled. Outside of one or two exceptions, all of the students had the same generic features. Sure, there were a few differences so none of them looked exactly the same but they all had similarly-coloured hair of varying lengths and styles, similar skin tones and similar facial structures. All in all, it was very weird to see.

"Well, of course. Most of us weren't able to customise our avatars like you have so we're stuck with the defaults," a random student who had been looking out of the window near the door suddenly spoke up, making Harry jump as he hadn't seen him. "Personally, I don't mind it too much but it would have been nice if the girls' avatars were a bit more developed." That second comment was accompanied with a slight sigh as he turned back to stare out of the window at a young woman wearing rather tight clothes that would have probably had Harry staring as well if he had been about six or seven years older.

Harry didn't really know how to respond to that so he just left the guy to it and made his way towards the stairs like his unseen Servant had suggested, doing his best to ignore the odd looks a few of the students were giving him as he passed. Just as he was about to around the corner to go up, Harry nearly walked right into a man in black and he immediately jumped backwards. He was about to run away when he realised that it wasn't the same man that had attacked him but somebody else that seemed to be dressed as a priest.

"Is there something you need of me?" the priest asked as he turned to face Harry.

"No, I don't even know who you are," the child replied quickly since he didn't have the best track record with adults in this school and he would much prefer to avoid bothering people if possible.

"Then allow me to introduce myself. You may call me Father Kotomine. I am an NPC assigned the task of supervising the Holy Grail War."

"Holy Grail War?" Harry asked. He had heard it mentioned a few times now but he still didn't know what it was.

"The Holy Grail War is the name of this tournament where Masters such as yourself are competing over the Moon Cell's Holy Grail for the right to have their wishes granted. The War is run as an elimination tournament, with the Grail being awarded to the last person standing. In other words, the participating Masters will kill each other until there is only one person left. Simple enough to understand, yes?"

"Kill?" Harry repeated in shock as he listened to the man talk so casually about such a topic. The mention of killing also reminded the child of the dead bodies he had encountered the previous day in that chapel and he suddenly felt like he was going to be sick.

"That's right. Masters get a six day preparation period before Elimination Battles, which occur on the seventh day. I'd advise you to use the time given to devise the most efficient means of slaughtering your foe," Father Kotomine explained, completely unperturbed about the idea of people killing each other and apparently oblivious to Harry's growing discomfort. "On the seventh day, you and your foe will fight. The winner lives and the loser is...deleted. To aid your preparations, the Arena up ahead has been provided as a training ground of sorts where you can hone your abilities by massacring enemy programs to your heart's content." When he spoke of the Arena, he idly gestured towards the far end of the corridor. "I recommend that you familiarise yourself with it as soon as possible. The Arena entrance uses the same door you went through during the preliminaries. If you wish to make a query, speak now. The right to ask about the rules is given to all."

"I'm fine," Harry said as he fought down the urge to vomit and slowly backed away from the creepy man. While he did have quite a lot of questions, he really didn't want to be around this priest any longer than absolutely necessary.

"I see. Good luck, then." Father Kotomine then turned to leave only to pause and then turn back to face Harry as though he had just remembered something. "One last thing, all Masters who have advanced to the main tournament have been given a private room. Your room will be located in classroom 3-C." As he spoke, the terminal that was still in Harry's hand beeped and he saw a small message of 'Private room password acquired' on the screen. "Well, the time for conversation has come to an end. Once again, I wish you luck in the tournament." With his explanation over with, the priest headed off towards the doors that led outside and soon disappeared from view.

"He's creepy," Harry muttered to himself once he was sure the man was gone and that he wasn't going to puke any time soon. He was still badly shaken at the idea of people dying so he was trying really hard to not think about it by distracting himself.

"Indeed," his invisible Servant agreed from his side. "Why the SERAPH decided to give a supervisor such a personality is beyond me. Still, that private room he mentioned is perfect for our discussion so we should head up there after checking the bulletin board for our opponent."

After climbing the stairs to the next floor, the young Potter saw a handful of people clustered around a noticeboard. They all slowly dispersed one by one once they had gotten the information they were after and Harry waited until they were all gone before he nervously went over to it. The board was full of numerous strips of white paper, each containing two names, and he was lucky in that the one with his own name on was near the bottom otherwise he might not have been able to see it properly.

"Master: Wei Zhang. Battlefield: First Chimeric Lunar Sea," Harry read out loud. He had no idea who that was but that was hardly surprising since the only people here he knew the names of were Sakura the nurse and the creepy priest.

"So, you're my first opponent, Harry Potter?" an accented male voice remarked from behind and Harry quickly turned around. The speaker had the same generic features and brown uniform that most of the students possessed and the only thing about his appearance that stood out at all was the simple red scarf that was loosely wrapped around his neck. "You must be quite skilled to have customised your avatar so extensively but that doesn't mean you're going to be able to defeat me." The teen then wandered off before Harry had a chance to even consider replying, leaving the eight-year-old alone in the corridor.

"He seems determined," Harry's hidden Servant observed. "But it doesn't matter. I will strike down anyone who stands in your way so don't worry." The sincerity of the declaration caught the boy off-guard a bit since the idea of someone being so willing to help him was something he wasn't all that used to but he smiled a little all the same. "Now that we know who our opponent is, I owe you some explanations so we should retire to your private room upstairs."

After another trip up the stairs, Harry found himself in another pretty much identical corridor and from there it only took a few moments to make his way to classroom 3-C at the end after being directed by a helpful student in black who introduced himself as a member of the student council and explained that they were NPCs tasked with providing assistance to Masters in the tournament, which in turn led to a brief explanation of what an NPC was. The door wouldn't budge when he tried it but, after a suggestion from his Servant, he managed to get it open by holding the terminal near the handle. As he passed through the doorway, he felt a slight tingling sensation as though he had walked through some sort of barrier and he slid the door shut again the moment he was inside.

* * *

As soon as the door was shut, the invisible Servant materialised next to him and Harry ignored the room for now in favour of finally being able to get a proper look at her. She was a bit younger than he thought since she looked to be somewhere in her late teens or early twenties and her outfit was composed mainly of a short black dress with a fairly simple design on the front. The skirt part was quite short as it only reached about halfway down her thighs but there was another greenish skirt with a black edge on top that almost reached her knees with a section missing both at the front and the back. The dress also had short green sleeves that didn't go much past her shoulders and were connected around her neck by a black and green collar which left a bit of her chest as well as most of her upper back exposed, although he couldn't see the latter right then since her hair hid the uncovered skin from view.

Long black stockings covered most of her legs and also seemed to serve as her shoes based on the gold-coloured soles attached to the heels and toes. The gloves Harry saw earlier were still there but now he could see that, while the left one stopped at the wrist, the right one covered most of her forearm. While the young Potter had initially assumed that her long unkempt hair was entirely straw-coloured, he could see now that the fringe was actually a shade of green and the rest of it paled considerably once it reached her waist.

However, the most eye-catching features she possessed were what seemed to be a pair of straw-coloured cat-like ears sticking up on the top of her head and a similarly coloured feline tail that hung from underneath her skirt. Oddly, instead of looking weird, Harry actually thought that these unusual features suited her and made her look like a beautiful beast in human form. Still, he had never met anybody with a tail before so it was understandable that his curiosity would get the better of him as he reached out to touch it while the woman in question was giving the room a brief look over.

"This room is more than good enough as far as I'm concerned. What do you think, Master? Do you find it accep-kyah!" She cut herself off mid-word by letting out a yelp of surprise when she felt a hand gently touch her tail without any warning and she quickly spun around to face her Master.

"I'm sorry! I was just wondering if it was real. I didn't mean to make you mad," Harry hurriedly apologised as he took a few steps back in response to her sudden movement.

"I'm not angry with you," the young woman replied, only to frown when she noticed that her Master was cowering a little and also seemed to be bracing himself like he was expecting to be hit. Not liking what that suggested about his childhood, especially since he had mentioned that he had tried to run away from his relatives earlier, she lowered herself to his level by getting down on one knee and gently placed a hand on his shoulder, which caused him to both flinch involuntarily and look at her in slight confusion.

"There's nothing for me to be mad about. You simply caught me off-guard since I wasn't expecting you to do that and your curiosity is perfectly understandable. While I wasn't born with these ears or this tail, they symbolise a curse that was inflicted upon me when I was alive and they are indeed real parts of my body." Seeing that he had calmed down again and that he was now glancing up at the top of her head, the Servant decided to indulge her Master's childish innocence a bit more. "If you want, you can touch my ears as well. I don't mind." When he hesitantly reached out and ran his fingers across her left ear, she smiled a bit while doing her best to ignore the momentary shudder that went down her spine in response to the completely new sensation.

"It's soft," the young Potter muttered to himself as he pulled his hand back. While she didn't seem to mind him satisfying his curiosity, he didn't want to push his luck and he instead voiced a question that her explanation had raised. "What did you mean 'when you were alive'? You're alive now, right?" If she wasn't alive, then she had to be some sort of ghost but, while that would explain her ability to turn invisible, ghosts were supposed to be really cold yet she was quite warm.

"I suppose that that's as good a topic as any to start the explanations with. Why don't you sit down on the bed first? This could take a while," she suggested as she stood up again and gestured behind Harry.

Now that he wasn't focusing on the Servant's appearance, the black-haired orphan took a moment to look at the room that was apparently his. It was clearly a school classroom but all of the tables and chairs were piled up against one wall and there was a single large comfy-looking bed near the windows. Other than that and the divider that separated what looked to be a simple bathroom from the rest of the classroom, the place was quite empty.

"This whole room is mine?" he mumbled to himself in amazement. "It's much bigger than my cupboard." Since he was still looking around in wonder, he missed his companion's green eyes narrow momentarily upon hearing his unintended comment and her expression had relaxed by the time he looked at her again. Once he had gotten a good look at his new room, although he still couldn't believe that he was getting one so big, he sat down on the bed and found it to be even more comfortable that it appeared.

"I am what is called a Servant," the woman began, leaning against the wall near Harry. "Servants are the manifestations of Heroic Spirits from history and are summoned by their Masters to fight for them in the Holy Grail War while the Master maintains their Servant's existence by sending their prana across the link formed by the contract. Heroic Spirits are those whose legends persist long after their deaths, such as Heracles, Medea of Colchis, Jason who captained the Argo or Orpheus the musician. While I am alive in a sense, it would be more accurate to think of this as a second life since I died a very long time ago." Since Harry looked a little uncomfortable at the revelation that she had died, she quickly carried on.

"Servants are divided into categories based on their areas of expertise or other notable traits and these categories are called Classes. The standard seven Classes are Saber, Archer, Lancer, Rider, Caster, Assassin and Berserker. I have heard of rare cases that end up with some other designation but I don't know whether they were true or just rumours." At this point, she held her left hand out to one side and her long black bow, which the young Potter could now see was adorned with some simple gold-coloured designs, materialised into existence in her grip. "As you can probably guess from my bow, I am an Archer Class Servant."

"If Servants are famous people from the past, then who are you?" Harry asked curiously as the bow disappeared again. He almost certainly wouldn't recognise her name but it would be nice to have something to call her and he could always try and research her legend sometime since he had seen a sign for a library on his way up the stairs.

"While I have no problems with you knowing my true name, nor am I ashamed of my legend, I would like to ask you to allow me to keep that to myself for the time being. A Servant's identity is important information in this tournament and if an enemy were to discover mine then we would be at a disadvantage so please just call me Archer."

"Alright," Harry replied after a moment's thought. He was a little sad that she didn't seem to trust him with her name but he could kind of understand her reasoning since he knew from the kids at his school that children weren't always all that good at keeping secrets and, while he wouldn't reveal her name if she didn't want him to, he couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't accidentally slip up at some point.

"Since the priest explained what the Holy Grail War itself is, I don't think there's anything else that you need to know right now so we can just stop here with the basics if you want and I can explain anything else when it becomes relevant," Archer offered since her young Master appeared to be having a bit of trouble handling all of the information he was getting and she didn't want to cause him unnecessary confusion.

"Do I really have to kill people?" the child asked quietly, her mention of the priest reminding him of Father Kotomine's earlier explanation.

"The tournament is set up in such a way that those who are defeated get deleted from the SERAPH so that the last Master remaining can claim the Moon Cell's Holy Grail," Archer reluctantly said as she sat down next to him and wrapped her right arm around his shoulders to try and reassure him. This really wasn't a good topic for a child but she felt that it needed to be addressed sooner rather than later. "However, I will do any fighting that is required and I would prefer it if you were to stay here where it is safe." That way, all deaths would be on her and her Master's innocence would hopefully not be completely destroyed by the end of this whole thing.

"I don't want you killing people because of me," Harry mumbled. Killing people was really bad and Archer seemed like a nice woman so he didn't want to make her do something so horrible. "Why does anybody have to die?" he asked, tears starting to form in the corners of his eyes as the thought of so many people dying, as well as the memory of the dead from yesterday and the seriousness of the situation that he had somehow found himself in, began to overwhelm him.

Archer didn't say anything in response to her Master's question and instead gently pulled him into what she hoped was a comforting hug. She had no qualms with killing if it allowed her to protect the sobbing child in her arms but saying that wouldn't help the current situation at all so she kept quiet and just held him.

* * *

It took a while but eventually Harry ran out of tears. It took even longer before he started to calm down and it was only then that he realised that he had been crying all over Archer's chest. Thinking that she wouldn't be happy about that, he looked up at her face only to see that she was smiling kindly at him.

"Do you feel better now, Master?" the bow-wielding Servant asked.

"A bit," Harry replied with a sniffle as he straightened up and out of the woman's light grip. "I'm sorry about crying on your clothes."

"Don't be. As long as you're feeling better, I don't care what happens to them." Archer easily waved off his concerns since she really wasn't bothered at all by the large damp patch on her dress.

Harry thought that she was probably just trying to be nice to him since wet clothes were always at least somewhat unpleasant to wear even if the wetness only covered a smallish area. As he reached up to dry his eyes with his baggy sleeve, his stomach chose that moment to remind him that he hadn't eaten anything since the day before yesterday. Embarrassed by the loud grumbling, the black-haired orphan turned away from Archer to hide his slightly red face while the Servant in question merely smiled a little at the action.

"I take it you're hungry, Master?" she asked, even though it was obvious. When his stomach growled a second time as if to answer, she had to hold back a slight chuckle when his face reddened even further from embarrassment. "Perhaps it would be a good idea to visit the commissary for some food?"

"What if I have to pay for it? I don't have any money," Harry asked after taking a moment to work out that 'commissary' was probably the school's canteen. While his primary school gave out meals for free, he knew from overhearing some of the other kids' conversations that some places charged.

"We'll deal with that when the time comes," Archer replied. She had no idea whether the food was free or not, and the only reason she knew about the commissary in the first place because she had seen a sign for it while accompanying her Master earlier, but she could always just steal some if need be.

Since they wouldn't find out about the cost of the food without having a look, the two of them left the private room, with Archer disappearing from sight just before Harry opened the door, and made their way down several flights of stairs to the underground commissary. When they got there, they saw several students and adults dotted around the room, most of them busy eating. Harry slowly walked up to the counter as soon as it became clear and was about to ask the woman in the apron standing behind it whether he had to pay or not when she spoke up.

"In hell, money conquers all. Welcome to the Tsukumihara Academy Commissary!" she cheerfully said as though it was some sort of standard greeting.

"Is the food free or do I have to pay for it?" the young Potter asked uncertainly after getting over his minor surprise at the odd salutation.

"Since some Masters may not have had the opportunity to visit the Arena yet, all food is free today. However, from tomorrow onwards, payment will be required and it goes without saying that other provisions are going to cost you," the clerk explained in the same cheerful manner.

With his question answered, Harry helped himself to a late lunch and put some aside for the next day in case he couldn't get any money to buy anything. He was about to get some more for Archer so she could eat it in the privacy of his room but she told him it was unnecessary, explaining that Servants didn't actually need food or other basic necessities since they arguably weren't alive in the normal sense of the word. Despite knowing that, he still added a bit more to his developing stash in case she changed her mind.

Once he had finished eating, the Master and Servant duo wandered around the campus for a little while so the latter could familiarise herself with the layout and then they returned to Harry's private room since he felt more at ease there due to how it was just him and Archer, who had again become visible the moment the door was shut. Once he had put his small stockpile of food safely out of the way, the Servant gently placed a hand on his shoulder to get his attention.

"Master, I'm going to go and explore the Arena for a little while and I would like you to stay here while I'm gone," she requested. "The Arena can be a dangerous place and our opponent may choose to attack if I encounter him. I don't want you getting hurt so allow me to go by myself."

"But what if you get hurt?" Harry asked. He didn't think that could happen since she seemed really strong but he was still worried about her. "Besides, we're supposed to be working together, so shouldn't I go with you?"

Even though he wasn't agreeing with her suggestion, Archer couldn't help but smile at the child in front of her. Her Master was certainly brave and he seemed determined to not let her go off into an unsafe environment on her own even though he was clearly nervous at the idea of going there himself. Torn between wanting to keep him safe and wanting encourage these positive traits of his, she eventually reached a decision after a few minutes of thought.

"Very well, we'll go together," the green-clad woman declared. "However, we won't stray too far from the entrance and I want you to follow any instructions I give you, alright?" That seemed like an acceptable compromise to her; there shouldn't be too much danger if they didn't go too far in and she was confident that she was more than fast enough to get him out of there if it became necessary.

"Alright," Harry quickly agreed and the two of them once again left the private room.

The walk to the Arena entrance was completely uneventful which didn't really help the messy-haired boy's nerves since there was nothing to distract him from what he was about to go into. Archer's invisible presence was reassuring but he couldn't help thinking back to the other dangerous situations that he had found himself in since arriving in this school. When they got to the fire exit at the end of the ground-floor corridor, Harry found that the door now led to a small elevator rather than the storeroom he had ended up in last time.

The console only gave him two options and, since it was his first time going to the Arena, he decided that the first floor would probably be a better place to start. Besides, the option for the second floor was greyed out and didn't seem to be accessible right then so there wasn't much of a choice. Unexpectedly, the lift didn't move when he pressed the button and instead a bright light momentarily filled his vision.

* * *

When the sudden flash died down barely a second later, Harry couldn't help but look around in amazement when he found himself in a completely different place as though the elevator had simply teleported him there instead of doing it the normal way. It looked like some sort of maze with numerous open spaces connected by long, narrow corridors and the walls, floors and ceilings were all translucent with a faint blue glow that oddly gave Harry the impression that the whole thing was underwater even though it clearly wasn't. He could see flickers of movement in the distance which he assumed were enemies of some kind and a few stationary blobs of colour that he wasn't sure about. All in all, the place reminded him of a dungeon from one of Dudley's video games.

"Remember, stay close to me and don't hesitate to do whatever I tell you," Archer told him from her place at his side as she gave the air a brief sniff. "It doesn't seem like our opponent is here but we're still going to be careful since it's possible that they have set traps for us."

"Alright," Harry replied, a little unnerved by her change in demeanour. The warmth that had been present in the Servant's green eyes every time he had seen her was no longer there as she surveyed the Arena with a cold, sharp gaze. When her bow appeared without warning and she fired a single arrow off into the distance, he actually jumped at the sudden movement.

"It dodged," the woman muttered to herself in mild annoyance. As a second arrow appeared in her right hand, a small cube came flying towards the pair and split itself in half, with both pieces connected by a spring. Her next shot hit the cube's lower half and caused it to spin around a few times in mid-air but it quickly recovered and resumed its charge. As a faint animalistic growl escaped Archer's lips, she drew her bow back for a third attack. This time, the projectile glowed with raw power as she let it loose and it struck with enough force that the cube was blown apart by the impact.

"What was that?" Harry asked as he watched the cube's fragments break apart into nothingness.

"That was an enemy program called a Klein," Archer replied absently as she gave her bow a brief look of confusion. "They are spawned by the system solely for us to fight against. That was a fairly weak one but there are likely others that are much stronger further in. Do you still wish to explore with me? I won't think any less of you if you want to leave."

"No, I want to stay with you," the green-eyed Potter answered. Even though there was nothing he could do to help, he didn't want her to be by herself.

"Very well," the Servant said as she started to walk off, checking over her shoulder that her Master was indeed following her.

They were just about to turn a corner when another Klein flew into view and an arrow shot forwards from Archer's bow before Harry had even registered the program's presence. Just before the projectile could hit, the enemy pulled its two halves together and seemed to brace itself. This defensive action meant that the arrow only delivered a glancing blow that didn't seem to do any significant damage and the Klein quickly followed up with a counter-attack that had Archer leaping backwards with Harry to ensure that neither of them got hit.

"Stay back, Master," the bow-wielding woman ordered as she fired off three more arrows in quick succession. The Klein braced itself for the first one but the second two interrupted its intended counter-attack and gave her an opening which she immediately took advantage of by shooting another trio of arrows simultaneously. The program didn't stand a chance against the combined force of the attacks and shattered to pieces like the first one had.

After another fifteen minutes or so of walking, during which time Archer destroyed four more Kleins, they encountered a different sort of cube floating in mid-air that the Servant said was an item folder. At her suggestion, Harry touched it and it split open, allowing a small piece of crystal to fall to the ground.

"That is an Ether Shard," she explained while Harry examined it curiously. "It can be used to heal me ever so slightly should I get too injured. Things like this can occasionally be found in the Arena, along with other random items that get lost on the campus, but the commissary would be a much more reliable place to acquire them."

Pocketing the shard, Harry was about to carry on walking when Archer suddenly put her arm in his path to stop him.

"We're not going any further today," she declared. "Let's turn back and call it a day."

"Huh?" Harry was understandably confused by the abrupt decision and was just about to question her when he realised that she was staring straight ahead with narrowed eyes. Following her gaze, he saw what appeared to be a wasp the size of a small dog flying around in the middle of the path in front of them.

"That's a Crix," Archer told him. "It's much stronger than a Klein and I don't want to risk you getting hurt. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to have seen us yet so we should be alright."

As though it had heard her words and decided to prove her wrong, the insectoid program promptly turned around and charged. The green-clad woman growled in annoyance and dismissed her bow so she could instead pick Harry up to retreat. The Servant was by far the faster of the two and quickly put a considerable distance between them but had to suddenly skid to a stop when a trio of Kleins casually floated around the corner in front of her one after the other. If she had been on her own then getting past them would have been easy but she was currently carrying her Master in her arms and that limited her mobility just enough that she couldn't be sure that one of the programs wouldn't be able to get a lucky hit in if she attempted to bypass them. Not wanting to risk him getting hit, Archer had no choice but to essentially drop Harry so she could summon her weapon again and fight.

"Sorry, Master," she quickly apologised for her rough and abrupt action even though he wasn't complaining. Based on how fast the Crix was moving, she should have more than enough time to deal with the Kleins before it caught up but that didn't mean that she was going to dawdle so she drew back her bow's string and let loose three arrows.

Annoyingly, while one of the cubes was destroyed by her attack and another was severely damaged by it, the third hostile program braced itself for the incoming fire and thus survived it more or less unscathed. It tried to counter-attack as its remaining comrade was taken out by another arrow but it was avoided when Archer leapt backwards and landed in a crouch on all fours. The Klein then found itself on the receiving end of four consecutive shots that interrupted its guarding actions and the fifth shot, that was literally glowing with power as the Servant had charged her arrow with prana, blew it to pieces.

"Time to go, Master. The Crix will be here soon," Archer called out to Harry, only for her ear to twitch when she noticed that the wasp-like program's distinctive buzzing was a lot closer that it should be. When her Master let out a yell behind her, she quickly spun around and saw the young boy clumsily roll out of the way as the Crix tried to stab him with its stinger from behind. A volley of arrows instantly flew from her bow and succeeded in getting the program's attention but didn't cause any significant damage aside from rendering one of it's legs useless.

With a new target to attack, the Crix shot forward and nimbly avoided the pair of arrows that had been launched at it. It tried to skewer the Servant in front of it with its stinger but she jumped to the side and it only managed to graze her right arm just above her elbow, which would heal soon enough courtesy of the prana she was getting from her Master. Lacking the intelligence needed for any kind of strategic fighting, the program tried the same thing again and failed miserably when an arrow to its lower body knocked it off course and caused it to fly around randomly for a few moments until it stopped dangerously close to the small fragile Master. Shifting back to its original target, the wasp tried to drive its stinger into the child's body and kill him like its programming dictated.

Harry managed to just about avoid the attack by shuffling backwards but he unintentionally backed himself into a corner in the process and was thus unable to evade the Crix's next attempt. "No! Stop!" he yelled, clumsily raising his arms in a futile attempt to shield himself. As he did, a red light suddenly shot forward from his palm and hit the Crix, pushing it back slightly as well as momentarily stunning it.

"Die!" Archer snarled furiously, shooting off one final arrow that had been loaded with the majority of her remaining prana. The projectile was by far the strongest attack she had used that day and it struck the hostile program with the force of a cannonball, slamming it into the far wall and ripping a sizeable chunk out of its body. Having sustained such serious damage, the Crix quickly dispersed into nothingness.

"Are you alright, Master?" Archer asked, concern for her Master clearly audible in her voice as she quickly made her way to his side and crouched down to check him for injuries. Seeing that he appeared to be unharmed, although he looked to be in a state of mild shock at how close he had just come to dying, she gently picked him up and ran back to the Arena's entrance as fast as she could, cradling the scared child against her chest. "It's OK, Master. I promise that I won't let anything hurt you," she said soothingly, comforting him as best she could while running.

Fortunately, the bow-wielding woman didn't encounter any other obstacles during her retreat and it only took a few minutes to escape back to the campus. Since he had recovered enough to stand by the time they reached the exit, Harry left the elevator on foot while the invisible Archer stood at his side, her comforting presence being a great help for him as he made his way back to the safety of his private room. As soon as the door was shut, the glasses-wearing orphan collapsed against the wall as his Servant materialised right next to him and held him like she had earlier.

* * *

The two of them stayed like that for a while until Harry had calmed down from his recent near-death experience and he noticed that the room was getting quite dark. He didn't know what time it was since there wasn't a clock in the room but it was probably quite late and he was starting to feel tired, as evidenced by the yawn he let out.

"Are you feeling better now, Master?" Archer asked kindly when she felt him start to move.

"A little." Harry's reply was interrupted partway through by another yawn. Realising that he probably wouldn't be able to stay awake much longer, he started looking around the room to try and work out where the best place for him to sleep would be.

Archer just watched her Master in confusion, trying to figure out what he was doing. He was clearly close to falling asleep yet he was looking around as if he was trying to find something instead of going to bed. When he seemed to give up on his search and started to curl up on the floor, she spoke up.

"Are you not going to sleep?" The young woman had her suspicions about his actions based on what she had managed to glean about her Master's childhood but she wanted some confirmation.

"I'm sleeping here," Harry replied tiredly, placing his glasses out of the way as he yawned again. This part of the floor seemed as good as any other and he didn't really want to move.

"There's a bed in here," Archer pointed out. "There's no reason for you to sleep on the floor."

"But that's yours," the young Potter mumbled as though it was obvious. He was now struggling to keep his eyes open and even the uncomfortableness of the floor wouldn't keep him awake much longer.

Harry was unexpectedly stopped on his descent to the realm of sleep when a faint glow caught his eye and he saw Archer's clawed gloves disappear to reveal her bare hands. She then gently lifted him up and carried him over to the bed, lowering him onto the covers as she laid down next to him.

"What are...?" the eight-year-old asked sleepily only for another yawn to cut him off. There was only one bed in the room and it just made sense to him that Archer would use that while he'd sleep somewhere else.

"This is a compromise," Archer explained simply. "You want me to use the bed and I refuse to let you sleep on the floor so the only option left is for us to share the bed." She didn't like that her Master had automatically assumed that he wouldn't be able to use the bed and, even though she had no knowledge of their names or faces, she found herself developing a strong dislike for whoever had raised him.

"You don't have to..." Harry muttered as he tried to get up again only for the Servant to gently pull him back down and draw him into a soft cuddle to keep him there.

"I want to," the woman in green and black interjected kindly. "The floor is no place for a child to sleep so you're using this bed even if I have to keep you here all night. Never think for a moment that you don't deserve something so basic."

When she saw that he had fallen asleep while she was talking, Archer simply smiled as her determination to protect the child in her arms grew even stronger.

* * *

 **A/N: I know some people probably aren't going to be all that happy with this chapter, since there's only a bit of action near the end and a decent amount of the rest is explanations of things that most readers probably already know, but Harry needed to know what he is now involved in and the explanations should also help anyone who may not be as knowledgeable about the Fate franchise.**

 **Also, as people can probably tell by this chapter, Harry isn't simply going to be fighting the same opponents that the player goes up against in the game so I'll be using some OC Masters instead which means that there'll also be some Servants that don't appear in Fate/Extra. I'm sorry if that bothers people but just rehashing the game by replacing the protagonist with Harry and giving him all of their opponents would be pretty boring to write (and probably boring to read as well).**

 **Finally, there have been a few people mentioning Fate/Extra CCC in the reviews so I'm going to address that now. I am aware of the game and I have a very basic knowledge of the overall plot from reading the wiki however I have never actually played it due to the lack of an English version (there's apparently a fan-patch in the works but it's going to take a while because of the sheer amount of text that needs translating). Because of this, I'm not planning to incorporate the CCC storyline since I'd inevitably screw up somewhere because I don't know the details so apologies to anyone who was looking forward to that.**


	3. Week 1, Day 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Fate/Extra. Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling and the Fate franchise belongs to Type-Moon.**

* * *

 **Week 1, Day 2**

When Harry started the long process of waking up the following morning, he immediately became aware of the comforting warmth right next to him. Not really wanting to get up just yet, the eight-year-old instead snuggled against the warmth, absently noticing the pleasant forest-like smell that drifted into his nose. It was only when another slight movement of his head left his ear resting on top of a steadily beating heart that he actually started to move, albeit somewhat reluctantly. Stretching a little to work out some of the kinks in his body caused by his recent sleep, the young Potter finally opened his eyes and saw the blurry form of his Servant lying next to him.

"Good morning, Archer," the black-haired boy mumbled in between yawns. When he didn't get any response, he took a closer look at her and saw that she appeared to be fast asleep. Trying his best to not disturb her, Harry awkwardly wriggled out from under the bow-wielding woman's arms that had been gently wrapped around him and tried to remember where he had left his glasses, not noticing her eyelids flutter as his movements woke her up.

"Good morning, Master. Did you sleep well?" she asked, sounding surprisingly alert for someone who had only been awake for a few seconds. The Servant then stretched slightly in a manner that reminded Harry of Mrs Figg's numerous cats and passed him the spectacles she had left on the bedside table the previous evening.

"Yeah, it's a bit weird having such a comfy bed though," Harry admitted as he slipped his glasses on. Now that he could see properly, he started going through the usual morning stuff like going to the toilet and having a wash while Archer stayed sitting on the bed in thought. Once he was finished, he headed over to the door with the intention of going to the commissary for a slightly late breakfast, since the bow-wielding woman had explained in the Arena yesterday that defeating enemy programs yielded a monetary reward that could be used to buy food and other supplies, only for the Servant to speak up and get his attention.

"Master, there's something I'd like to talk to you about before we go."

"What is it?"

"While I was fighting in the Arena yesterday, I realised that I can't access my full power. I think my Class Skills and Personal Skills are as they should be but my basic parameters seem to have been lowered for some reason," the Servant of the bow explained. She had figured out during the night that the most likely reason for the reduction in her abilities was her Master's lack of skill as a magus, since the only time she had seen him demonstrate any sort of magical ability had been against the Crix and that had clearly been instinctive and uncontrolled, which confused her since thaumaturgy was something that required study and practise. Still, she wasn't going to share her suspicions as doing so wouldn't fix the problem and her Master would probably start blaming himself if he knew.

"That wasn't your full power?" Harry asked in surprise. He thought that she was really strong already so finding out that he had only seen a fraction of her true strength had been very unexpected. "Wait, what are Class Skills, Personal Skills and parameters?" He could make an educated guess based on the terms but he figured it'd be better to ask Archer to be sure, especially since she had made it quite clear already that she didn't mind explaining things to him and she wouldn't berate him for asking questions like the Dursleys would.

"Class Skills are abilities given to all Servants that are summoned into a given Class. Each Class gets different Skills and finding out your opponent's Skills can help narrow down what Class they are, which in turn can help work out who they are. As an Archer, my Class Skills are Independent Action and Magic Resistance. The first one allows me to act on my own even while rejecting the prana you are providing me with whereas the second gives me some protection against thaumaturgy, although my Magic Resistance is pretty low so it can only nullify weak spells." She paused at that point in case her Master had any queries about her explanation but he didn't so she carried on.

"Personal Skills are similar except they relate to the Servant's own abilities and legends rather than their Class and therefore can be even more useful for figuring out a Servant's identity than their Class Skills. The parameters I was referring to are the system's way of quantifying a Servant's basic attributes of strength, endurance, agility, mana and luck. All of these are assigned ranks starting from E and going all the way up to A, with a few exceptions here and there. The higher the rank, the stronger that particular Skill or attribute is so a Servant with A-ranked strength would have a lot more physical power than a Servant with E-ranked strength and so on. I think you can use your terminal to check these but I have no idea how to operate it, sorry."

"I think I understand all of that, thanks," Harry replied slowly as he processed everything Archer had just told him to the best of his abilities. "Maybe Sakura could show me how to use it," he wondered out loud. Seeing as the nurse had been the one to give him the device in the first place, asking her seemed like a good idea. Besides, the only other people he had really talked to here were the girl he had met in the archery range two days ago, who he hadn't seen since, and the creepy Father Kotomine, who he really didn't want to be around unless he had to.

* * *

Since he was getting fairly hungry by this point, the green-eyed Potter set off for the commissary after confirming that there was nothing else that Archer wanted to talk to him about. As he still wasn't entirely awake yet, he stumbled a little going down the stairs to the floor below and ended up bumping into someone when he was about to start down the next flight, unable to react in time to his invisible Servant's warning. Fortunately, neither Harry nor the person he had collided with fell down the stairs but the impact did result in the two of them landing on the floor in a heap, which led to the unseen Archer tensing in case the newcomer reacted with hostility.

"I'm sorry," Harry quickly apologised as the pair got back to their feet.

As they did, he had a look at the teen he had collided with and saw that she was another student wearing the same brown uniform that pretty much everybody else had, although her legs were covered by tights rather than socks like most of the other girls he had seen in passing the previous day. She had the same bland genericness that most of the students shared though her long waist-length brown hair and similarly coloured eyes were just about enough to differentiate her from the rest. Despite the lack of any significant distinguishing features, she seemed a bit familiar to the young child though he couldn't quite work out why.

"No, it's my fault. I wasn't looking where I was going." The brunette's response was followed up by a large yawn, making it clear that she had probably only just woken up.

"You're the girl from the nurse's office," Harry suddenly said to himself in realisation. It had taken him a few moments, but he had eventually managed to place the teen as the girl who had been sleeping in the bed next to his own when he had woken up yesterday. "Are you feeling better now?" Archer had said that the student had been sleeping for almost as long as he had, and she was still asleep when he left the nurse's office, so there must have been something wrong with her. It was only after he had asked that Harry realised that he might be coming across as a bit nosy so he apologised again.

"How did you-" the girl started to speak but cut herself off and glanced to one side, her expression suggesting that she was likely listening to her invisible Servant. "Oh, I see," she muttered before turning back to Harry. "I'm fine now. I was just recovering from an injury," she replied as she unconsciously rubbed her chest right where her heart was, not too bothered by the question since the boy in front of her was clearly just curious and didn't seem to have any malicious reason for asking.

Before either of them could say anything else, the two Masters' stomachs grumbled loudly in perfect synchronicity. This resulted in both of them blushing a bit in embarrassment and agreeing that any further conversation could wait until they had gotten their respective meals.

* * *

It only took a few minutes for the pair to get down to the commissary and acquire their food, most of which was spent queuing behind a particularly indecisive student who kept changing his mind again and again until the clerk got fed up and sent him away, and the brunette opted to sit at the same table as Harry. It was a rather odd experience for the glasses-wearing Potter, since Dudley and his gang's bullying generally stopped the other kids at his school from wanting to be friends with him so someone voluntarily sitting with him to eat was something completely new but certainly not unwelcome.

"Are you sure you don't mind me sitting here?" the teen in brown asked when she caught him glancing up at her, the boy still a bit surprised that she had wanted to join him in the first place.

"It's fine. I'm just not really used to people wanting to sit with me," Harry reluctantly admitted. He figured he should give some sort of explanation since she had noticed his action and the truth was probably the best option. He could have sworn that Archer grumbled something to herself next to him but he dismissed it as irrelevant when she fell silent again after few seconds.

"I'm Hakuno, by the way. Hakuno Kishinami," the older girl said by way of introduction when she realised that neither of them had actually given their names yet. She chose not to respond to the child's other comment since she didn't want to pry and most of the other people she had talked to the previous day hadn't been interested in revealing anything about themselves other than maybe their name if she was lucky.

"Harry Potter."

Once the introductions were done, the two of them didn't really talk much while they ate; Harry had no idea what teenagers talked about in the first place so he didn't know what sort of topics he should bring up and was thus waiting for Hakuno to start while the teen in question just assumed that he didn't want to talk and stayed quiet. In the end, Harry was the one who broke first from the lack of conversation and asked the first thing that came to mind.

"Why did you enter the Holy Grail War?" The idea of people willingly getting involved in something that forced them to kill others in order to simply survive was something the green-eyed orphan was having a bit of trouble getting his head around and he hadn't had the opportunity yet to find out why people were risking their lives like this.

Unexpectedly, instead of replying or even refusing to reply, Hakuno froze momentarily at the question, her food stopping barely an inch from her mouth. It only took a second for the brunette to recover from her surprise and answer but her response wasn't something that he had expected. "I don't know." Seeing that she was about to be questioned again, she placed her food back on her plate and elaborated. "Something went wrong and I didn't get my memories back after the preliminaries. I don't remember anything about myself apart from my name and there doesn't seem to be anything I can do to fix it so I have no idea why I came here in the first place." Her voice took on a melancholic tone as she spoke which made Harry feel bad for asking.

"I'm sorry," the eight-year-old mumbled apologetically. Even though he himself didn't know exactly how he had ended up in this school, he could still remember his past, however unpleasant it may have been, and he couldn't imagine how Hakuno must be feeling.

"It's alright. You didn't know and you're not the first person to accidentally bring it up," Hakuno replied, thinking back to a conversation she had had on the rooftop the previous day. "What about you?"

"I didn't enter, or at least I don't think I did. I remember falling asleep and then the next thing I know, I'm waking up in the grass near the archery range. I didn't know anything about what was going on until it got explained to me and I still don't understand everything," Harry replied as he finished the last of his breakfast.

"I guess we're in the same boat then," Hakuno remarked as she finished her food barely a few seconds later. "At least we were both lucky enough to find someone willing to explain things or we'd be even more lost than we are."

"Yeah, Ar-err my Servant was really helpful," Harry said, quickly cutting himself off before he could reveal Archer's Class. While he still didn't fully understand it yet, the cat-eared young woman had told him of the importance of information in the Holy Grail War so he was trying to not give anything away. "The priest is really creepy though," he added as an afterthought.

"Yeah, he is. Still, at least he's helpful. He said he'd track down my first opponent sometime today because of some system error or something."

"I got a message on this yesterday saying that the match-ups were listed on the noticeboard on the second floor," the black-haired boy said, pulling his terminal out of his pocket as he spoke while wondering what the brunette meant by a 'system error'. "I need to ask Sakura if she'll show me how to use it," he mumbled to himself in an attempt to avoid forgetting as the mention of opponents and the subsequent train of thought reminded him of his earlier intention.

"I can show you if you want," Hakuno offered. The boy's muttering had clearly been him making a mental note but she had easily overheard it due to their close proximity and decided that she might as well help him out a bit. "I fiddled around with mine last night and I think I've got it more or less figured out."

Despite being surprised by the offer, Harry quickly agreed and the brunette proceeded to give him a simple overview of how to operate the odd little device, including the very useful option of setting a password on it to prevent other people from using it. It was actually easier than he had been expecting and he thought that, if it wasn't such an unfamiliar piece of technology, he might have been able to work it out himself with a bit of experimentation. Hakuno even told him how to look up information on Servants, though she didn't actually demonstrate this to avoid revealing anything about her own, and Archer suggested that he have a look once he was back in his private room so they could see the extent of her parameter reductions.

Once the young Potter had a decent enough understanding of how to use the terminal, the pair of Masters ended up chatting for a little while longer, though topics were somewhat limited due to a combination of Hakuno's amnesia and Harry's general lack of experiences while growing up. It was almost an hour later, by which time the commissary had become noticeably emptier, that their friendly conversation was cut short when Hakuno's terminal beeped.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked when the teen's expression immediately became one of nervousness upon looking at the screen.

"My opponent has been announced," she muttered.

"Oh." Hearing that, Hakuno's sudden mood change made perfect sense. Knowing that Masters were expected to kill each other to live was one thing but knowing who it was that they'd have to fight to the death with in less than a week made the whole thing much more real. It was only because of Archer's reassuring presence, coupled with him doing his absolute best to not think about it, that Harry was coping with his situation as well as he was.

"I guess I should get this over with," Hakuno mumbled as she stood up. "I'll see you around." With that, the brunette headed out of the commissary, leaving Harry alone with his invisible Servant at their table.

"I hope she's okay," Harry said, more to himself than anyone else. He had enjoyed his conversation with the amnesiac teen and, while he wasn't sure if they could really be considered friends after only an hour or so of interaction, he didn't like the idea of people he knew being unhappy.

"She should be fine," Archer replied. The Servant of the bow had spent most of the time in the commissary observing the older Master in case she had an ulterior motive but she hadn't been able to pick up even a hint of hostility in the amnesiac girl and thus had no problems with her Master socialising with her.

Since there was no longer any reason for him to stay in the commissary, the glasses-wearing orphan decided that he and Archer might as well head back to his private room so that they could have a proper look at her stats on the terminal. Or rather, they were going to do that until Harry caught sight of some random Master leaving the counter with a few crystals like the one he had found in the Arena the previous day and he was reminded of the clerk mentioning that she sold things other than food. With his curiosity getting the better of him, he went over to see what there was, something Archer approved of since knowing could only be beneficial to them.

He couldn't spare too much money since he had to set aside enough to cover meals but, after a couple of minutes of talking it over with his Servant, he ended up getting another Ether Shard and a cylindrical Return Crystal, the latter of which apparently allowed a Master to instantly leave the Arena and return to the school's campus regardless of how far away they were from the exit. Archer had been a little unhappy about the Return Crystal, as using it would require her young Master to actually be inside the Arena in the first place, but she had eventually conceded since it wasn't too expensive and trying to convince him to stay in the safety of his private room while she fought in the Arena wasn't something that should be done in public if she didn't want him to draw unnecessary attention.

With their shopping done, the Master and Servant pair opted to retire to their private room in classroom 3-C, this time with no distractions delaying them.

* * *

Upon returning to his private room, Harry sat down on his bed, pulled out his terminal and navigated through the menus like Hakuno had shown him until he found the bit that showed Servant information. Like the brunette had said it might be, Archer's profile was incomplete and only showed her basic parameters, which were all listed as E-ranked, and her two Class Skills, A-ranked Independent Action and D-ranked Magic Resistance, both of which were accompanied by a brief description. The rest of it was rather empty and Harry would have probably been worried that something was wrong if Hakuno hadn't told him that the terminal only seemed to show information that its owner had already found out, meaning that the reason for the numerous question marks was simply because Harry had no idea what data those particular sections might contain.

"I thought that they were lower than they should be, but I didn't think they'd be that low," Archer muttered to herself as she sat down next to her Master and looked at the screen over his shoulder. "Don't worry, Master. Even if I am weaker than I should be, I promise that I'll protect you," she declared, not wanting him to be disheartened by the drop in her stats.

"Harry," the boy mumbled after a few moments.

"Hmm?" The Servant of the bow was caught off guard by the apparent non sequitur and was about to question it when he carried on.

"Could you call me Harry instead of Master?" He hadn't really paid much attention to it the previous day but, thinking back, the young orphan realised that Archer had never actually addressed him by name. He didn't know if it was just her preference or if there was some Servant rule that meant that she had to call him that since it was technically his role, even though he was probably the most useless Master ever, but it was making him a little uncomfortable now that he had noticed it as it reminded him of his time with the Dursleys. None of his relatives ever really used his name, Uncle Vernon seemed to be particularly fond of just calling him Boy whenever he talked to him, and the lack of familiarity just seemed to emphasise the fact that they didn't want him.

"Very well, Harry," Archer replied to her Master's hesitant question with a friendly smile. "I suppose I probably should have asked what form of address you preferred after our contract was established and I'm sorry if I was making you unhappy. If there is anything else you want, you need only to ask."

"No, that was it." The eight-year-old couldn't think of anything else right then, since the only other thing he wanted was to get out of this Holy Grail War immediately and that was impossible, but he might not have asked even if he did have other requests as the Servant already had to kill others for him and he didn't want to bother her with anything else.

"If you're sure..." Archer trailed off. She could tell that the child next to her seemed reluctant to ask for things, the tone he had used when requesting for her to call him by name suggested that he wasn't expecting the question to actually accomplish anything, and she could make a reasonable assumption as to why based on what little she knew of his past. The problem was that she didn't have any real experience with this sort of thing.

Sure, the huntress had interacted with children on multiple occasions when she was still alive but those were usually more about helping if a child was attacked, rescuing them if they had gotten lost in the forests or other similar things. Never before had she had the opportunity to look after a child who had clearly suffered some sort of emotional damage while growing up and help heal the scars that had been left behind. Ignoring the circumstances that had led to their meeting in the first place and the deadly tournament that they were currently involved in, Archer had to admit that she was looking forward to the time she would be spending with Harry over the coming weeks. The one thing she desired above all else was for all the children of the world to be raised with love and she was more than willing to provide that love for her young Master.

As had happened before, a sudden electronic chiming came from the terminal, pulling Archer from her thoughts and making Harry, who had been reading the description of his Servant's Independent Action, drop the small device in surprise. Fortunately, the impact didn't seem to have caused any damage and the orphan quickly retrieved the object to see why it had made the noise.

"The primary cipher key has been generated," the green-eyed Potter read aloud before turning to the woman next to him who had been reading the message over his shoulder. "What's a primary cipher key?"

"I assume that it's a key of some kind but, other than that, I don't know. It's probably important since you got a notification about it but I don't know all of the specifics of how the Moon Cell is running this Holy Grail War so we're going to have to ask somebody. The priest you talked to yesterday would probably be the best option since he said that everybody has the right to ask about any of the basic rules of the tournament and he wouldn't have any reason to withhold the information from you or lie," Archer replied after a moment's thought.

* * *

Since it would be best for them to get answers as soon as possible, the pair headed out of the private room straight away to look for Father Kotomine. After passing a few other Masters talking amongst themselves, which allowed Archer to overhear that the nurse's office was apparently giving out free healing supplies, Harry and his invisible Servant quickly found their target near the stairs on the floor below. The young Potter didn't particularly want to talk to the creepy man after the unnerving conversation they had had the previous day but it was necessary and hopefully wouldn't take too long.

"Greetings, young Master. There are a few things I have to talk to you about before you go to the Arena," Father Kotomine began before Harry could even say a single word to him. "You should have received a notice a few minutes ago that your Primary Trigger has been generated. Two Triggers must be acquired before the end of each week if you intend to participate in the tournament." The man in black didn't seem to notice that the boy in front of him was about to speak and carried on, suggesting that he was either trying to annoy him or just reciting a pre-written speech to anyone that enquired.

"A Trigger, or a cipher key as they are otherwise known, is a key to the coliseum as well as a way to cull weak Masters. All Masters are required to obtain them during the preparation period and any who fail to do so will forfeit by default. The Arena is divided into two floors and one Trigger is generated on each floor. For the sake of convenience, the Triggers are generally referred to as the Primary Trigger and the Secondary Trigger and a notification will be sent to your terminal whenever one generates." When Father Kotomine saw that Harry was about to leave the moment he finished his explanation, he spoke up again to deliver one final piece of information.

"Combat between Masters is prohibited at all times, both in the Arena and on campus. If a fight occurs for whatever reason, the system will shut it down within thirty seconds. In addition, a penalty will be imposed on any Masters caught fighting on campus. That's all I have to say. If you don't have any other queries, I suggest you head down to the Arena to look for your Primary Trigger."

Not having any other questions, Harry took the opportunity to quickly, but politely, leave the creepy priest to his own devices and headed downstairs to see what sort of stuff Sakura was giving out. When he got to the ground floor, the boy stopped momentarily since he could have sworn that he felt somebody staring at him but the odd sensation disappeared as quickly as it had appeared in the first place and he couldn't see anybody looking in his general direction.

"There doesn't appear to be anybody watching you but it would be best to stay alert anyway," Archer told him after asking about his sudden pause. "It's possible that our opponent is observing you to try and gather information or it could be somebody else who is simply intrigued by your young age." She thought that the latter was the main reason for the strange looks her Master had been getting the previous day but it would just be stupid to discount the possibility of enemy action.

Other than that brief incident, nothing happened during the incredibly short walk to the nurse's office and, after knocking on the door in case Sakura was dealing with something that required privacy, Harry found himself being called in by the friendly purple-haired teen. The girl in question was sitting at the table in the middle of the room and seemed to be in the middle of making some sandwiches.

"Hello, Harry. Do you require medical attention or are you just here to collect some healing supplies?" she asked as she walked over to a cupboard and took something out.

"Just the healing stuff," Harry replied. Neither he nor Archer had been sure that what they had overheard was true but the nurse's question pretty much confirmed it for them.

"Here you go, then. Five lots of Ether Powder," Sakura informed the young Master as she passed him five clear vials that were each filled with some sort of crystalline powder. "I know it's not much but it's better than nothing," she said apologetically when she saw Harry examine the items curiously before pocketing them. "Healing items are available for each Master once per round so don't forget to come back again next week."

"I'll try not to," the green-eyed Potter said as he watched the teen return to her chair. Seeing as he didn't have any other business with the AI right then, he left the nurse's office so she could get back to finishing her food in peace. The boy had barely taken three steps from the door when he saw Wei Zhang, the Master who had been assigned as his opponent, walk up the stairs from the commissary and then head straight towards the Arena, the red scarf around his neck making him easily identifiable despite his otherwise very unremarkable appearance.

"It would seem that our enemy has decided to show himself again," Archer spoke up from Harry's side as the pair watched the teen disappear around the corner near the Arena's entrance at the far end of the corridor. She had been a little surprised that they hadn't encountered him during their exploration of the Arena the previous day, though she certainly wasn't complaining given what had happened with just hostile programs, but this was an opportunity that she shouldn't ignore.

"He's probably going to look for the first Trigger now that it's been generated and his Servant will undoubtedly be accompanying him. I'm going to follow them to see if I can learn anything so please go back to your room where you'll be safe," the Servant of the bow requested.

Despite the wording, it was clear to Harry that he was being ordered to return to his private room while Archer went off on her own. He opened his mouth to argue but she cut him off before he could get a single word out.

"This is for your own good and you won't be able to talk me into letting you come this time. An encounter with another Servant will be on a completely different level to the programs from yesterday and I will not allow you to be involved in such danger." Her voice then softened slightly as she carried on. "Besides, I'm only going to be doing a bit of reconnaissance. I have no intention of starting a fight and I should be able to avoid detection as long as I'm careful so don't worry. Just wait for me in your room and I'll be back before you know it."

With that, the glasses-wearing boy felt Archer's presence leave his side and rapidly make its way down the corridor before vanishing completely after a few seconds, which he assumed meant that she had entered the Arena. Now on his own for the first time since he had met the Servant two days ago, Harry suddenly felt quite lonely as he glumly made his way to the stairs. Even though he could understand the woman's reasoning for leaving him behind, he was dead weight to her and he knew it, he didn't necessarily like it.

While he was silently lamenting his uselessness as a Master, Harry idly shoved a hand into his pocket to make sure that his terminal was still there, since he wouldn't be able to get into his private room without it, and stopped in his tracks when his fingers brushed against one of the vials he had gotten from Sakura barely five minutes ago. Pulling it out, he just stared at it for a moment, wondering if there was even any point in him having healing supplies when Archer wasn't allowing him into the Arena where they'd be needed most. If he stayed out like she had told him to then the most he'd be able to do with them would be patching her up after she returned from her information gathering trip.

Clenching the vial in his hand, Harry made a snap decision and ran down the corridor to the Arena's entrance. Archer was almost certainly going to scold him for it but he didn't want to leave her on her own. If she ended up getting into a fight with his opponent and his Servant then she would be at a disadvantage since the other Master probably had some actual skills that he could use to support his Servant and the reduction in Archer's parameters just made that disadvantage worse. Even if it wasn't much, the Ether Powder Sakura had given him and the Ether Shards he had acquired before those meant that he could actually help Archer like a Master was supposed to and he didn't want to be a burden to her when she was fighting in this tournament to keep him alive.

* * *

Even though he entered the Arena only a couple of minutes after Archer did, Harry couldn't see any sign of his Servant near the entrance. Fortunately, as he was now inside with her, the young Master could just about sense her presence through the link they shared so he started moving in that direction. She was surprisingly far away considering how little time she had been there and the green-eyed orphan thought that it would take him a while to catch up to her until he felt her suddenly stop and then hurry towards him.

After a few moments, Harry caught sight of the bow-wielding woman's blurry form through the translucent walls of the Arena as she ran at an incredible speed and it only took another second for her to skid around the corner in front of him. For an instant, Archer just stared at him, her face a strange mix of worry and displeasure, before her eyes abruptly narrowed and her bow materialised into existence in her hand.

"Get down!" Archer yelled as she drew back an arrow that started to shine due to the prana being channelled into it.

Without even thinking, Harry dropped to the ground in response to the command as the glowing projectile shot through the air and struck something right behind him. At the sound of the impact, he clumsily spun around just in time to see the shattered remains of a Klein disperse into nothingness. Realising how close he had just come to dying, the boy turned back to face the woman who had saved his life yet again and saw her crouching down on the floor next to him with an unreadable expression on her face.

"What are you doing here, Master? I believe I told you to wait for me in your private room."

Harry involuntarily flinched at his Servant's tone since it was noticeably lacking in the warmth that he was used to hearing and it was quite obvious that she was very unhappy with his, admittedly reckless, decision to follow her. Still, he believed that he had made the right choice and that conviction had yet to waver, even when faced with an annoyed Archer. "I just wanted to help you."

"While I can't really fault your desire to assist me, running around in the Arena on your own like that is extremely dangerous. If I had been even a few seconds later in getting here, then that program could have easily killed you," the woman lectured, trying to get Harry to realise the seriousness of what he had done so he wouldn't do it again.

"I swore to do everything in my power to protect you when we made our contract and that is why I didn't want you coming in here with me. There is nothing more important to me in this war than your safety and nothing would have been able to harm you if you had stayed in your room like I asked you to." Archer then suddenly glanced over her shoulder and narrowed her eyes. "Do you have nothing better to do with your time than eavesdrop on others?" she growled.

Shifting his gaze to the area that Archer was now watching intently, Harry could make out a pair of blurs through the walls that then walked around the corner and into view after being called out to. One of them was Wei, the Master Harry was supposed to fight, and the other was presumably his Servant. The stranger was fairly short for a grown man, not even five feet tall, and his appearance was surprisingly simple. His short and untidy hair was a medium brown that was only a few shades darker than his somewhat tanned skin. A plain white shirt covered his upper body and a pair of equally plain black trousers covered the lower half, held up by a belt that was so long that it trailed out behind him and came close to reaching the floor.

"You can blame this guy for that," the apparent Servant said, gesturing to the Master next to him. "We were on our way back after getting the Trigger when we heard you and he wanted to see if we could learn anything. Personally, I wanted to just get down to business because the programs here are pathetically weak but Servants are supposed to follow orders," the unidentified Servant casually elaborated with a shrug before turning to address his Master. "I still don't get why you wanted to hang around like that. These two are nothing compared to me and the sooner we leave the Arena, the sooner you can get some sleep. You've been yawning all day and it's starting to get a little irritating."

"So you keep saying," Wei replied, yawning as he did. Now that his Servant had mentioned it, Harry noticed the bags under his eyes that hadn't been there the previous day and that he looked so exhausted that he might collapse at any moment. "Besides, you know full well why I've been up as long as I have so don't complain."

"Yeah, yeah. Is there anything else? I'm getting bored," the Servant complained, idly scratching his ear.

"If it'll shut you up, then fine," Wei sighed, gesturing towards Harry and Archer. He then yawned again as he leant against the wall.

"Fighting is prohibited outside of the coliseum," Archer interjected as she worked out what the other pair were getting at. She wouldn't normally care but she didn't want Harry this close to a confrontation between Servants as she wouldn't be able to guarantee that he wouldn't get caught in the crossfire.

"Are you a pacifist or something? You do know that Servants are supposed to fight in the Holy Grail War, right?" the enemy Servant asked, twirling around a long red staff that hadn't been in his hands a moment ago. Without another word, the short Servant suddenly shot forwards with enough force that his bare feet cracked the ground a little and swung his weapon at Archer's head only for her to push Harry backwards and leap to the side, allowing the staff to strike the ground instead and leave a small crater on impact.

As soon as the enemy Servant launched his attack, the area was bathed in a faint red glow that flashed in a manner reminiscent of a fire alarm. At the same time, both Masters' terminals beeped and displayed a warning to them that unauthorised combat had been detected by the system and would be shut down in thirty seconds.

"Stay back, Harry!" Archer shouted as her bow reappeared in her grip. A trio of arrows flew towards her foe but he deflected one and almost cartwheeled out of the way of the other two.

"So you're an Archer, then?" the staff-wielding Servant remarked upon seeing his opponent's choice of weapon. "Did you have to make it so obvious?"

The female Servant's only reply was to fire off another few arrows which were all either blocked or dodged without too much trouble. She had seen the damage the enemy's staff has caused and it showed that his physical strength was considerably greater than her own. Ideally, she wouldn't fight an opponent like this at such close range, since a few solid hits like that could easily take her out, but she couldn't run off to give herself some more space because that would mean leaving Harry behind and she couldn't carry him because she wouldn't be able to shoot properly like that.

After batting aside yet another arrow, the enemy Servant seemed to get bored of just defending and he shot forward again. He was a little impressed at seeing the woman fire five arrows simultaneously in a wide spread but he just slammed the end of his weapon into the ground and pole-vaulted over the volley. His intended downwards swing was met with three glowing arrows, one of which left a nasty gash across his left bicep while the other two were deflected by his staff. The force of the blocked projectiles proved to be just enough to knock him off course but he simply rolled with the movement and instead swept the Archer's feet out from under her with a low kick the moment he touched the ground.

The cat-eared woman quickly recovered from the unexpected attack and her follow-up shot, packed with prana and fired at point-blank range, embedded itself deep into the knee of the offending leg, going straight through the kneecap and sticking out the other side. Unfortunately for her, the staff-wielder didn't appear to be overly bothered by the injury, despite stumbling momentarily when he tried putting his weight on that limb, as he returned the favour by slamming the end of his weapon into her stomach hard enough to wind her and then lift her up into the air with a flick of his wrist. Unable to effectively manoeuvre in mid-air, she instead tried to block the incoming swing with her bow, as it was more than durable enough to take such punishment. While the defensive action certainly helped to reduce the damage, there was still sufficient force behind the swing that she was thrown backwards and smacked painfully into the wall.

"You're not too bad, you know?" the male Servant remarked as he propelled himself forwards with his good leg and one of his arms. "I'm just better." With that, he tried to end the fight with one final swing but failed when a barrier appeared between them and caused his staff to harmlessly bounce off.

"It looks like our time's up," Wei commented with another yawn from where he was still leaning against the wall. "Let's go back." He then pulled a Return Crystal from his pocket and, with a blinding flash of light, disappeared from the Arena with his Servant.

"Archer!" Harry shouted in concern as he ran over from where he had been watching the entire fight in shock. The bow-wielding woman had been right earlier when she had told him that an encounter with another Servant would be completely different to the fights he had seen previously. The eight-year-old was still trying to comprehend what he had just seen, as the whole thing had only taken thirty seconds from start to finish, but the sight of Archer sitting with her back against the wall, one hand holding her gut in pain while a bit of blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, was far more pressing for him.

"Please be OK," he mumbled as he knelt next to her and pulled an Ether Shard out of his pocket. It was at that point that the glasses-wearing Master realised that he was missing one important piece of information. "How do I use this?" he asked frantically. Archer was clearly in a lot of pain but he had no idea what he was supposed to do to help her. He tried gently pressing the crystal against the Servant's stomach, since that seemed to be the most injured area, but it didn't do anything except elicit a groan of pain from the woman.

"You have to send a bit of prana through it," Archer told him. While she was quite injured from the short scuffle, as she was pretty certain that that last hit had cracked at least three of her ribs and each breath caused a small spike of pain in her chest, she wasn't on death's door like Harry seemed to think. She'd probably be more or less fine after a few hours of rest, though a full night would be much more preferable, but her Master wanted to help her and it would be better for him to learn this sooner rather than later. Besides, if he couldn't activate an Ether Shard, then he wouldn't be able to use his Return Crystal either and she wasn't sure if she was capable of getting out of the Arena and back to Harry's room under her own power in her current state.

When his only response was confusion, the Servant elaborated a bit to try and help him figure it out. Unfortunately, she couldn't just give him instructions on the matter since she wasn't a magus and thus didn't actually understand it properly herself; even though she could use prana to increase the power of her arrows, she was a Servant and they didn't quite function in the same way as living humans. "Prana is the energy that magi use to perform their thaumaturgy. You're constantly sending a small amount of it to me across our link and you would have also used some when you stunned that Crix yesterday."

"Uh, OK," Harry responded uncertainly. He could tell that Archer was trying to assist him as best she could but he would have preferred it if things were a bit clearer and easier to follow.

When it became clear that the injured Servant couldn't provide any more help than that, he closed his eyes and concentrated on what little she had been able to tell him. He had apparently used some of this prana stuff when the Crix had attacked him but he had no idea how he had made that red light as he hadn't been thinking of anything other than desperately wanting to survive the imminent threat of death. Since he didn't have anything else to go on, the eight-year-old tried to reproduce that feeling and somehow direct it to the Ether Shard in his hand.

It took a little while, during which time he heard Archer awkwardly deal with a Klein that had drifted a bit too close, but eventually, after trying to convince himself that a Crix was about to ram its stinger straight through his heart and kill him, Harry felt the piece of crystal heat up a bit before disintegrating. Not sure if he had done what he was intending or if he had just accidentally destroyed the Ether Shard, Harry opened his eyes again and saw Archer looking at him with a proud smile on her face. Since she appeared to be quite happy and was no longer holding her stomach, the young Master assumed that he had indeed managed to heal her properly.

"Well done, Harry," the Servant said as she stood up and stretched a little, wincing imperceptibly as she did. She then saw her Master wobble a bit and gently placed a hand on his shoulder to steady him. "Are you feeling alright? That was quite a large surge of prana you generated when you healed me. If you want, we can call it a day and go back to your room for some rest."

"No, I'm fine," Harry insisted. He was actually feeling slightly light-headed but he assumed that was normal for prana stuff and he didn't want to be the reason for them leaving the Arena. "Anyway, we need to find that Trigger, don't we?" he asked, trying to change the topic. He then stood up so that he could join Archer on her exploration and promptly fell down again when one of his legs buckled.

"The Trigger can wait until tomorrow. You're in no condition to carry on right now so we're leaving," Archer stated, her tone leaving no room for arguments. She then scooped the boy up in her arms, ignoring the minor pain that accompanied the action, and carried him back to the Arena's entrance.

* * *

Despite being somewhat unsteady on his feet, it didn't take too long for the Master and Servant duo to return to their private room on the top floor. At Archer's insistence, Harry had gone to see Sakura just to make sure that everything was alright with him and had been told, after a short explanation and examination, that he just needed to get some rest for a few hours as his body simply wasn't used to the strain of handling so much prana in one go. Almost as soon as they had arrived at classroom 3-C, Harry practically collapsed onto the bed from exhaustion after getting something to eat from the small food stash he had started the previous day while Archer leant against the wall next to him.

"What are your thoughts on the enemy?"

"Huh?" The sudden question caught Harry off guard and he had to think for a moment before he had an answer. "He seems really strong," he said, thinking about how easily he had thrown Archer around earlier. "Do you think we can win?" Just as he asked that, Harry realised how his question could be interpreted and he quickly backtracked. "I didn't mean that you're weak or anything. I just-"

"I know you didn't," Archer cut her Master off before he could get too worked up about the accidentally implied insult. "He is certainly a strong Servant to go up against in the first round and trying to beat him in a close-quarters fight probably wouldn't go too well for me but don't worry. We still have four full days before the Elimination Battle so we just need to use that time to try and figure out who he is. Once we know his identity, we should be able to come up with a good strategy for dealing with him. It might be worth visiting the library tomorrow to see if we can find anything there even though we don't have much to go on right now."

"Yeah, all we really know at the moment is what he looks like and that he has a staff," Harry replied, tossing the empty food wrapper in his hand into the nearby bin. Even though the entire point of the trip to the Arena had been to gather information, they hadn't found very much.

"It's better than nothing," Archer interjected. "Based on the skill he showed with that staff and the agility he demonstrated when dodging my arrows, there's a chance that he's a Lancer. He's too sane for a Berserker, he doesn't have the right weapons to be a Saber or an Archer and Casters aren't usually that competent in physical combat. It's possible that he could be a Rider or an Assassin, though. For some reason, I couldn't smell him at all in the Arena and I only knew they were there because I picked up the Master's scent and heard some noises." The fact that the Servant had been able to evade her sharp nose like that had perplexed her once she had realised it but it was unlikely that that piece of information would be all that useful compared to whatever else they could find out.

"We could go to the library now," Harry suggested as he started sitting up. After all, the earlier they started looking, the earlier they'd find something. However, the eight-year-old Master didn't even make it all the way to an upright position because Archer reached over the moment he started moving and gently pushed him back down.

"No, we'll go tomorrow. You need to rest and those books are still going to be there tomorrow. Once we've done a bit of research, we'll go to the Arena to look for that Trigger." When Harry suddenly looked at her in surprise at that last comment, she answered his question before he could ask it. "Yes, I'll let you come with me in the Arena. You'd probably just follow me in again if I told you to stay out and I don't want you in there without me right next to you. However, you're taking a Return Crystal with you and I expect you to use it at the first sign of trouble, understand?"

"Yes, Archer," Harry replied, happy that she was allowing him to accompany her despite being saddened a bit by the disapproval in her voice when she mentioned his earlier recklessness.

Even though it was only just starting to get dark outside, the young Potter was feeling quite tired, likely as a result of him overdoing it with the prana earlier, so he slipped under the duvet and started getting comfortable so he could get some sleep. As he moved about, he noticed some sort of odd pattern of zeroes and ones in the sky through the window but he quickly dismissed it as his eyes playing tricks on him due to his exhaustion. Just as he was about to take his glasses off, Harry caught sight of Archer looking down at her stomach and gently rubbing it with a slight grimace on her face.

"Are you alright?" Harry asked. Based on the action, he assumed that the Servant was still in pain from earlier even though he thought that he had healed her since she hadn't told him otherwise. Worried, he started rummaging around to try and find either the other Ether Shard he had or one of the vials he had gotten from Sakura.

"It's nothing" Archer replied. "The Ether Shard wasn't quite enough to completely heal me due to the extent of my injuries but I'll be fine after a bit of rest so there's no need for you to do anything else." She didn't want her Master to unnecessarily tire himself out even more and the pain had been slowly dying down since they had left the Arena so it really wasn't an issue.

"You should have said something," Harry told her as he shifted to one side and pointed at the now unoccupied half of the bed next to him. "Lie down. It's more comfortable than leaning against a wall."

"Very well," the Servant responded, an amused smile on her face when she realised that that was the first time that he had actually ordered her to do something instead of making a polite request. Since the boy had already lifted the covers for her, Archer allowed her stockings to disappear along with her gloves as she slid in next to him. She then quickly wrapped an arm around her Master before he could even think of giving her the entire bed and sleeping elsewhere.

"Goodnight, Archer," the eight-year-old mumbled with a yawn as the exhaustion of the day finally got the better of him.

"Goodnight, Harry," Archer replied, her words falling on deaf ears since the child had already succumbed to sleep. As she glanced at Harry's sleeping form, she idly wondered what tomorrow would bring.


	4. Week 1, Day 3

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Fate/Extra. Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling and the Fate franchise is owned by Type-Moon.**

* * *

 **Week 1, Day 3**

Much like the previous morning, Harry found himself waking up to the comforting warmth of Archer. However, he quickly realised that, unlike the previous morning, he wasn't simply snuggling up against the Servant's side and was instead sprawled out on top of her, using the soft mounds on her chest as a pair of rather comfortable pillows. Torn between wanting to stay where he was for a bit longer and the thought that he should probably get up now that he was awake, the eight-year-old stretched slightly with the intention of going back to sleep only to stop when he noticed that his baggy jumper had disappeared at some point during the night and that the quilt was bunched up at the bottom of the bed so that it only covered his and Archer's legs instead of their entire bodies.

"Good morning, Harry. Are you feeling better today?"

Hearing Archer's voice caused the young Master to look up at her and, even without his glasses on, he could see that she was wide awake with her left arm under her head to support it while her right was loosely wrapped around him. She didn't seem to be at all bothered by Harry's current position on top of her as she passed him his glasses and was clearly more concerned with finding out whether he had recovered after exhausting himself the previous day.

"I'm fine," Harry absently replied as he looked around for the missing item of clothing, eventually spotting it on the floor at the other end of the room.

"You took that off an hour or so after we went to bed yesterday since it was rather warm," Archer informed him after noticing the questioning look he was giving his jumper. "You threw the duvet off as well but I guess you were too tired for it to really register."

In truth, the child had been so tired that Archer had had to help him with the jumper as he had been having difficulty getting it off by himself and, even then, he had ended up unintentionally dumping it on her face while settling back down to sleep. Since none of Harry's clothes had been washed over the last few days, the smell had been a bit much for her sharp nose at that distance so she had quickly tossed it as far away as she could without thinking. The Servant had also taken advantage of the opportunity presented by the garment's removal to give her young Master's body a quick check and, while he was a little on the scrawny side, she had been pleased to find no noticeable signs of malnutrition or physical abuse, something that she had been worried about since concluding that Harry's home life wasn't particularly pleasant but hadn't wanted to bring up directly due to the topic's sensitive nature.

"Oh," Harry muttered to himself, clearly surprised that the jumper in question had travelled so far.

Since Archer was awake, the black-haired child decided that it probably wouldn't be appropriate for him to carry on using her as a bed so he stretched again and climbed off of her and onto the floor. As he did, he caught sight of a red mark on the back of his right hand that he initially thought was a stain until his attempts at getting rid of it proved useless. Having a closer look, he saw that it appeared to be a tattoo in the shape of a snake with a jagged body that reminded him of a bolt of lightning starting just above his wrist and extending down to the somewhat heart-shaped head that had a short forked tongue sticking out like it was trying to lick his knuckles.

"Archer, what's this?" He hadn't noticed the odd pattern over the last few days since his jumper's sleeve would have kept it covered all the time but, now that he had seen it again, he vaguely remembered it appearing in that strange chapel when he had first met Archer.

"Hmm?" The cat-eared Servant merely had to glance at him staring at his hand to know what he was referring to. "Those are your Command Spells. As a Master in the Holy Grail War, you have been granted the right to three absolute commands as proof of your contract with me. Should you use one when giving me an order then even things that are otherwise impossible for me to do can be accomplished. However, they also serve as proof of our participation in the Holy Grail War so using the third one would result in immediate disqualification, regardless of what it is used for." She knew that she probably should have told him this, along with a few other things that she still hadn't covered yet like Noble Phantasms, back on the first day with everything else but she had held off on it since she hadn't wanted to overwhelm him with too much information at a time.

"When you say 'absolute commands'…" Harry started to ask, only to trail off since he wasn't sure he was understanding it correctly. If he was, then the symbol on his hand could force Archer to do something that she didn't want to and that didn't sound right at all.

"Absolute means absolute. If you use one with an order then I would have no choice but to obey as the Command Spell would force my body to move even if I didn't want it to. The effect is weaker with broad and long-lasting instructions to the extent that it's generally useless but a concise and specific command would be strong enough that you could even force me to kill myself if you wanted to," Archer elaborated. Her Master's thoughts were like an open book to her right then and she could easily tell that he really didn't like the idea of having such control over her; had she been contracted to someone else of questionable morality, then she would not have been anywhere near as forthcoming with her explanation. "On the other hand, if we are in agreement on the order, then a Command Spell could be used to empower my actions to a degree far above what I would otherwise be capable of. Even though they have the potential for misuse, Command Spells are one of the greatest weapons a Master has at their disposal if used properly."

"I'm not going to make you do anything you don't want to," Harry quickly promised. The thought that he could do that made him feel uneasy and his Servant clearly trusted him to not abuse the Command Spells since she told him about them.

"I know you won't," Archer replied with a slight smile. "Just remember, you can only really use two of them so try not to use them unless there's no choice; using one in a situation where it isn't necessary is essentially wasting it."

"I'm not going to use them at all unless you tell me to," the glasses-wearing boy declared resolutely. He didn't want to risk angering the Servant by using one without her permission and her judgement would undoubtedly be much better than his anyway.

"Alright then," she conceded. Her young Master seemed to be focusing more on the Command Spells' unpleasant ability to force her actions rather than their useful ability to strengthen them so she would need to sort that out at some point but it could wait since it was unlikely that they'd need them so soon into the Holy Grail War.

With the issue of the Command Spells more or less dealt with, at least for the time being, Harry went off to deal with the usual morning stuff while Archer contemplated the apparent lack of laundry facilities and wondered if it'd be worth trying to acquire some more appropriate sleepwear for her Master from somewhere.

* * *

After getting some breakfast from the commissary, during which time Archer asked Harry to enquire about clothes only to be told by the clerk that she didn't stock things like that, the young Potter and his invisible Servant headed back up the stairs to see if they could learn anything from the library. Stepping onto the landing, the green-eyed child saw Hakuno standing more or less in front of him. The brunette didn't seem to know that he was there yet as she was looking at something down the corridor but Harry decided that he might as well say hello to her since she had been friendly with him the previous day.

"Good morning, Hakuno," Harry started, only for the teen to quickly shush him before he could even finish the greeting, along with making a shooing gesture with her hand. Feeling a mixture of confusion and sadness at the response, as it suggested that she didn't want to talk to him, the boy was about to leave her and go to the library when Archer spoke up from next to him.

"From the looks of it, she's trying to listen in on the conversation those two near the door are having so don't feel disheartened by her actions. She might not even realise that she just tried to get rid of you like that," the Servant remarked.

Hearing that, Harry turned his attention to the corridor that Hakuno was looking down intently and quickly figured out which two people Archer had been referring to. Standing next to the library door was another teen the same age as the amnesiac next to him with her long black hair fastened up in a pair of twintails. Unlike pretty much everybody he had seen in this school, this girl wasn't wearing the usual brown uniform and instead had a red long-sleeved top with a white cross on the chest, a short black skirt and a pair of black high-heeled boots that went halfway up her thighs.

Opposite the black-haired girl, with his back to Harry and Hakuno, was another teen with short blue hair wearing the same uniform that everyone else was. Harry had no idea who either of them were or why Hakuno seemed so focused on what they were talking about since the conversation didn't appear to be all that interesting.

"…from you in the past, but this time the winner is me! With her armada to back me up, I'm invincible. Nothing you can do will be able to even touch me," the blue-haired male declared arrogantly.

"Oho, you must be pretty confident to give out information about your Servant to an enemy," the teen in red replied.

"So she has an armada," Hakuno muttered to herself, quietly enough that Harry barely heard her.

"I understand now," Archer spoke up, drawing the young Potter's attention. "If she's paying attention to what he is saying about his Servant like that, then it's likely that he is her opponent. Gathering information on the enemy like this is vital to success in the Holy Grail War and that Master must either be very confident or very stupid to reveal things so openly. It's a shame that our own opponent doesn't seem like the type to do that."

Harry didn't really understand why just talking about an armada would be so useful since he didn't think it would be enough to reveal a Servant's identity but he trusted his Servant on the matter so he didn't question it. Turning back to the conversation out of curiosity, he then got a demonstration of the importance of information when the black-haired teen started idly talking about countermeasures for dealing with the previously mentioned armada that Hakuno tried to memorise while the other Master became increasingly nervous with each comment.

After a rather pathetic attempt at a comeback, the blue-haired Master quickly ended the conversation, likely to stop himself from letting anything else slip by accident, and turned around to leave. He only took a single step before he caught sight of Hakuno standing in the middle of the corridor and his nervous expression increased even more.

"You…! You weren't there the entire time, were you?" he half-asked and half-demanded, pretty much confirming that the amnesiac brunette was indeed his opponent. He then tried his best to look more confident than he was probably feeling and gave Hakuno a brief parting comment before quickly walking off.

"It seems that there are a great many Masters who don't understand the stakes involved," the girl in red commented to herself with a sigh as she approached. She exchanged brief and polite greetings with Hakuno and then left.

"Oh, hello Harry," Hakuno said as she caught sight of the eight-year-old while watching the black-haired teen walk off. Her tone suggested that she had only just noticed that he was there so he decided not to mention her earlier actions.

"Good morning. Was that someone you know?" he asked, his curiosity getting the better of him. The fact that the two girls had said hello to each other suggested that they had at the very least met before and he hadn't talked to many people here so he couldn't help but wonder about the other Masters.

"That was Rin Tohsaka," the brunette replied. "We're not really friends, she said that she considers everyone in the Holy Grail War an enemy, but she did explain a few of the basics to me."

"Another foreign person," Harry mumbled to himself, noting the name that was clearly not English in origin. "Where is this school?" Since all of the names that he had encountered since waking up in the school three days ago were foreign, the child was certain that he had somehow ended up in a completely different country, even though he had absolutely no problems conversing with anybody.

"You don't know?" Hakuno asked, clearly surprised by that. "According to Rin, this whole place is in a virtual world called Serial Phantasm, or SERAPH for short. I'm not entirely sure where the system that's running everything is but, from what I understand, it's apparently some insanely complex supercomputer inside the Moon that was built by aliens."

"Huh?" the green-eyed Potter eloquently replied. That just sounded utterly ridiculous. The concept of a virtual world was beyond his understanding and thus the term held no real meaning for him but the idea of an alien computer being inside the Moon was just plain silly.

"My apologies, Harry," Archer said from next to him, cutting clean through his thoughts. "I should have made sure that you understood this earlier but it honestly never occurred to me that you might have been able to get in without even knowing about the SERAPH or the Moon Cell, especially since you didn't question me when I mentioned them." In hindsight, the Servant was disappointed in herself for not realising that her Master didn't know since it should have been obvious when he had recounted the events immediately preceding him waking up in Tsukumihara Academy but she had been so preoccupied with explaining the actual Holy Grail War and all that it entailed, as well as discreetly trying to figure out the extent of the damage his upbringing had caused so she could try to fix it, that she had completely overlooked the possibility. It probably didn't help that this was the first time that the topic of where the Holy Grail War was taking place had actually come up in conversation.

"You mean that was true?" Harry asked incredulously. The explanation still sounded absurd but he didn't think that Archer would lie to him about it. Still, the computer bit did sort of make sense since the enemies in the Arena were called programs and then there were those zeroes and ones that he had seen in the sky the previous evening but dismissed as his imagination; while he hardly knew anything about computers, he did know that long strings of those two digits had something to do with them even if he didn't know exactly what.

"Yes, it was but I don't think it's all that important in the grand scheme of things so don't worry if you can't understand it properly," the invisible bow-wielding Servant responded. "While it's nice to know, it doesn't really change anything since leaving before the end isn't permitted and neither is contacting the outside world. Plus, once we win and you claim the Holy Grail, you can go wherever you want."

"I guess," the child said uncertainly. After giving it some thought, he did have to agree with Archer that knowing his current location didn't seem to make any difference to his situation so he was kind of wishing that he hadn't asked in the first place, if only to spare himself the headache of trying to comprehend it. Deciding to just put the whole thing to one side for the time being, the young Master realised that he had essentially been ignoring Hakuno for a good few minutes now and he quickly apologised.

"It's fine. Don't worry about it," the brunette replied. "It's not the easiest thing to get your head around if you don't already know about it and your Servant seems to have helped so you don't have to apologise. Anyway, since Shinji blabbed about it, I'm going to try the library to see if I can find out about the Invincible Armada. I'll see you around."

The mention of the library reminded Harry of why he was there in the first place and he wound up going with the long-haired teen after explaining that he had been planning on researching his own opponent. Hakuno had no problems with that and the two ended up quietly chatting while they went through the numerous bookshelves, hoping to find something useful for their respective goals.

* * *

After spending most of the morning in the library, Harry returned to his private room after getting some lunch at around noon. Like always, Archer materialised as soon as the door was shut while he sat down on the bed. Unfortunately, despite his best efforts, he hadn't been able to find anything of use during his search, unlike Hakuno who had at least discovered what exactly the Invincible Armada was without much difficulty.

"I'm sorry I couldn't find anything," the young Master said, hoping that the cat-eared woman wouldn't be too unhappy with him for his failure.

"You have nothing to apologise for," the Servant replied with a reassuring smile. "We know nothing about the enemy Servant except his appearance and choice of weapon so it was unlikely that the library would have been any help anyway. Once we learn more about him, we should be able to narrow down what sort of books to look through which will make the research much easier."

"If you say so," Harry muttered, clearly not confident in his ability to find the right information in such a large library with only a few days remaining. He also still felt bad about essentially wasting all those hours, especially since Archer had to remain in her invisible spirit form the entire time.

"Would you like to go to the Arena now?" Archer suddenly asked. "There are only four days left of the preparation period and we have yet to acquire either of the Triggers nor have we finished exploring the first floor. If we get lucky, we might even encounter our opponent again and hopefully get some more information on him."

"I guess we should," the orphan replied uncertainly. Researching in the library would be like looking for a needle in a haystack without any clues to narrow things down and there really wasn't much else for the pair to do right then either.

"What's the matter, Harry?" the bow-wielding young woman asked as she sat down next to him. It was obvious that there was something on his mind but she didn't know him well enough to be able to work out what it may be.

"I was just thinking about how this room is the only place you can actually do anything other than fight," Harry admitted, remembering the Servant's explanation of how she was incapable of interacting with anything while in her spiritual state due to the lack of a corporeal body. "Isn't there anything else that you want to do apart from help me?" She had told him that she had died a while ago so surely she'd want to make the most of her second life?

"I told you yesterday that there is nothing more important to me right now than ensuring your survival," Archer responded. She thought that she knew what her Master was getting at and the implication was unexpected but not unwelcome.

"But why? I know that Servants are supposed to fight for their Masters but why is me surviving so important to you?" It was something that Harry had been wondering for a couple of days now but he hadn't wanted to bring it up in case he came across as ungrateful for her assistance. "Why would you help me when you knew that it'd mean getting involved in this War?"

"Why wouldn't I help a child in need?" Archer replied. She had been expecting him to ask about her motive at some point but she hadn't thought that he'd do it so soon. "Even though you weren't trying to summon a Servant, your desperate plea for survival still reached me and there was no way that I could ignore it." A memory from her past floated to the forefront of her mind and she carried on talking with a somewhat haunted look in her eyes.

"I was abandoned immediately after my birth. My father desired a son and had no interest in raising a daughter so he left me to die on a mountain. Even though I was saved afterwards, I'll never forget the despair I felt back then. That's why I saved you. I refuse to allow another child to experience that, even for a moment, and I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I had just stood by and let you die." At that point, the Servant of the bow was abruptly brought back to the present when she felt her Master's small arms wrap around her waist in what was clearly an attempt at a comforting hug.

"I'm sorry," he said, feeling bad for bringing up such painful memories. While he knew that some parents gave up their children for various reasons, the idea of someone just leaving a newborn to die because they happened to be the wrong gender horrified him and he simply couldn't imagine how it must have felt for the Servant. It was right then that Harry decided that, despite his desire to know more about her, he wouldn't ask about Archer's past in case he accidentally brought up something else that was unpleasant for her.

"It's alright, Harry. You asked why I am so determined to help you so I told you," Archer replied as she wrapped one her own arms around him. It had certainly been a traumatising experience for her but it had helped shape her into who she was and she had no intention of lying to her Master about anything.

"Right, so the Arena?" Harry asked as he ended the, admittedly enjoyable, hug. It was a blatant attempt at changing the subject and he was certain that his Servant knew that but he really didn't want her to dwell on the memories that he had unintentionally dredged up.

"Very well, then," Archer responded. She knew what he was doing and the concern was quite nice even if it wasn't necessary. As the pair stood up, she thought about how much time they had left and how much they still had to do. "If possible, I'd like to finish exploring the entire first floor today so that we have enough time to cover the second. That said, we'll leave immediately if anything bad happens so make sure you have that Return Crystal."

"It's right here," the glasses-wearing Potter said, showing her the object in question before slipping it into his pocket along with what few healing items he had. With that sorted, the Master and Servant duo set off for their destination.

* * *

Remembering what had happened the previous day, Harry stuck close to Archer's side from the moment they entered the Arena as he really didn't want to almost get killed again. It was a good thing he did since a Klein appeared right in front of them barely two seconds after their entrance. The program didn't last long against Archer's arrows but Harry was under no illusions that he would have died before Archer could save him if he had gone in on his own again.

Following the map that his terminal had generated over the course of their previous explorations, it didn't take all that long for the pair to reach the place where they had encountered the Crix two days prior, with about half a dozen Kleins being taken out along the way. Just like the last time they had gotten so far into the Arena, one of the wasp-like programs was casually buzzing around in the middle of the corridor but Archer decided to make a pre-emptive strike this time.

"Remember, stay back while I deal with this but try to keep an eye out for other programs as well," the Servant instructed as she drew her bow back. Her senses were sharp enough that it was unlikely a program could get the drop on her unless she got too distracted but she wanted her Master to feel useful so she gave him the task regardless. Plus, if he was paying attention to his surroundings like that then he should hopefully notice any programs before they got close enough to attack him.

When he replied with his understanding, Archer charged her arrow with prana and let it loose, two more shafts instantly appearing in her hand. Unless the SERAPH was being particularly hostile with the Arena's settings, a Crix was probably the strongest program on the entire floor and she doubted that a single hit would take it out, especially given her weakened state. She was proven correct when the insectoid enemy survived the attack with only some moderate damage and made a beeline for her now that it knew she was there.

The young woman responded to the straightforward charge with the two arrows in her hand, this time without enhancing the shots with prana as she didn't want to burn through her reserves too quickly, and followed those up with another arrow immediately afterwards. The first two projectiles knocked the program off-course without doing much in the way of damage but she had gotten rather lucky with the last one as it pierced the joint between the Crix's thorax and abdomen with enough force that it came close to tearing the latter part off. One final well-aimed shot ripped the lower body clean off and that proved to be too much damage for the program to handle as it quickly disintegrated.

Dismissing her bow now that it was longer needed, Archer turned back to Harry and saw that he was staring at his terminal, occasionally glancing around before returning his attention back to the screen in his hand. She was about to gently scold him for not following the instruction she had given him, as it had been primarily for his benefit and not hers, when she remembered Hakuno's explanation of the terminal's functions; in addition to mapping out the Arena as its owner explored, it also displayed the position of any enemy programs that were within a short distance of the Master, even if they were out of sight behind a corner or something.

"We're done here so let's keep going," Archer called out, even though he probably knew the Crix was gone due to it no longer showing up on the map. "Good work with keeping watch," she added as the two of them set off again, the child smiling happily at the approval. "However, even though the terminal shows you where any nearby enemies are, you shouldn't be too dependent on it. If something is capable of evading its detection, not observing your surroundings with your own senses could prove fatal." She didn't necessarily disapprove of his use of the device, as it was arguably more efficient for him than constantly looking around and she didn't think that any of the Arena's programs were capable of hiding from it, but she didn't want him to become too reliant on it since the resulting lack of awareness would only hinder him once he left the virtual world of the Moon Cell and could also cause issues if they ever encountered an Assassin.

"I understand," Harry replied, his previous smile disappearing a bit even though he knew that she was just looking out for him. "Is that another item folder?" he suddenly asked as they rounded a corner. The cube in front of them was floating just like the one they had come across during their first visit to the Arena and it looked pretty much the same as well except for one small difference. The item folder that had contained the Ether Shard had been a pale blue colour whereas this one was a deep red.

"Yes, it is," Archer responded. "I don't know the significance behind the different colours but I can only assume that it has something to do with its contents. Either that or they're all just different colours." She wasn't all that knowledgeable about the workings of the Arena so she couldn't do anything other than speculate.

The Potter wasn't really sure what to expect when he reached out to touch the floating container but the scarf that dropped out definitely hadn't been on the list. It seemed to make of silk or something similar and the fiery red feathers that adorned it went nicely with the item's bright orange colour.

"A Mystic Code?" Archer questioned in surprise as she could sense the magical energy running through it. "I didn't know something like this could be found in the Arena. Even though it's probably not very powerful, it might come in handy at some point, depending on what it does. Why don't you have a look on your terminal?" she suggested, reminding Harry that Hakuno had told him about the device's ability to provide a basic description of items.

"What's a Mystic Code?" Harry wasn't familiar with that term so he no idea why his Servant was so surprised to see it.

"A Mystic Code is an item with some sort of thaumaturgy embedded within it. They can be used to cast spells called Code Casts and it's not uncommon for magi to develop their own at some point."

"Oh," Harry replied as he fished his terminal out and navigated through the menus. There was a new option alongside the item inventory labelled 'Mystic Code' and he poked it. "It says it's a Phoenix Scarf and it has a Code Cast which can slightly restore a Servant's health," he read out loud.

"That does sound useful," Archer admitted. "At the very least, using it would probably save us some money since we wouldn't have to buy as many healing items but something a bit more interesting would have been nicer." Personally, she would have preferred something capable of boosting her agility, even just temporarily, since she had taken pride in the swiftness of her feet in life and the severe drop in her parameters made her a fairly slow Servant compared to others but the odds of finding something like that just lying around probably weren't all that high.

"So how does it work?" the young Master asked, having absolutely no idea how a scarf of all things could be used to heal someone.

"It should just be a simple matter of channelling some of your prana through it in order to activate the Code Cast. Since it's apparently quite a weak spell, it shouldn't require too much and, unlike those healing items you've got, it can be used over and over again without breaking," the bow-wielding woman replied.

With the explanation over, Harry gave the scarf in his hands another look over and tried to send some of his prana into it as Archer had been a little roughed up during the short fights and he figured that he could do with the practise now that he had something that wouldn't disintegrate after a single use. Since he had already successfully managed to consciously use his prana the previous day, it only took him a few attempts before he felt something flow from within him and into the Mystic Code. Unlike with the Ether Shard, the Phoenix Scarf seemed to only pull out what was necessary for the Code Cast as he only felt a minor drain despite him not making much effort to limit the flow since he didn't really know how much would be required.

The disappearance of the handful of minor scratches that marred Archer's otherwise unblemished skin told him that the spell had both activated and done what it was supposed to do so he loosely wrapped the scarf around his neck since he didn't want to risk damaging it by stuffing it into his pocket. After that, the two of them carried on exploring, occasionally having to double back due to encountering a dead end.

After what felt like several hours of walking, during which time they found two more blue item folders with Ether Shards inside and Archer dealt with at least a dozen Kleins, another Crix and a pair of flat kite-shaped programs that she identified as Inspires, the pair caught sight of another item folder floating in the distance. While the Servant blew up yet another Klein, Harry touched the green cube to open it and quickly caught the small card, maybe half the size of a playing card, that fell out before it could hit the floor. Bringing it closer to his face for a proper look, he saw that there was some sort of chip in the middle that could be seen on both sides and there were several angular circuit-like lines extending out from there to the edges.

Since he had absolutely no idea what he was holding, he flipped through his terminal's menus again in an attempt to locate a description. It took a few minutes, as it wasn't a Mystic Code and it wasn't some sort of healing item either, but he eventually found what he was looking for. Rereading the entry on the screen, the child gave the card an odd look before deciding to just chalk it up to the whole place being full of odd things that didn't necessarily make sense.

"We've got the Trigger," Harry announced as he held it up for Archer to look at. "I don't know how this can be a key to anything but that's what the terminal says." He then proceeded to very carefully place the cipher key into his pocket so that it wouldn't get damaged.

"It looks like there's an exit just over there," the Servant informed him, gesturing to the open space at the end of the corridor in front of them. "Have we missed any areas of the Arena?" She didn't think that they had but Harry had the map and she didn't want to leave only to find afterwards that they had accidentally skipped a section.

"It doesn't look like we have," he replied. He was slowly going through the map on his terminal, looking for any indication that they had missed something, but there were no gaps or unexplored corridors so he was pretty certain that they had covered the whole place.

"In that case, shall we leave now? There's isn't much else for us to do here apart from fight against some more programs and I'd rather you not stay in here any longer than is necessary."

Since he didn't really want to stay there either, the eight-year-old agreed with his Servant's suggestion and they made use of the conveniently placed exit in front of them to get back to the school.

* * *

Upon returning to the campus, where Harry discovered that they had been inside the Arena for quite a while as it was getting dark outside, the Master and Servant duo returned to the privacy of classroom 3-C. The first thing he did there was place the Trigger on one of the desks where it wouldn't get damaged and he left the Phoenix Scarf with it as well since he wouldn't need it again for the time being and the feathers were starting to itch.

While her Master was busy with that, Archer casually leaned against a wall and decided that this had been the best day of the Holy Grail War so far, if only because Harry hadn't had any near-death experiences. True, they were seriously lacking information on their opponent, who should be experiencing the same lack of information regarding her identity as she didn't think that they knew anything apart from her appearance and Class, but they had acquired both the first Trigger and a useful Mystic Code and her young Master's self-confidence also seemed to be slowly improving after she put him in charge of navigation, even if part of the reason for that was simply because he was the one with a map.

"Harry, we're going to try and track down our opponent tomorrow so we can get more information," Archer stated. She didn't like admitting it but if they couldn't get any data relating to the staff-wielding Servant's identity then the chances of them surviving the first round weren't particularly good.

"Alright," the child agreed absently as he sat down on the bed. He was clearly thinking about something and the cat-eared woman was about to question him when he spoke up again. "Archer, is it possible to cast spells without a Mystic Code?"

"It is. In fact, most magi don't use Mystic Codes when using their thaumaturgy unless they need one to cast a specific spell," the Servant of the bow replied, noticeably surprised by the question that apparently came from nowhere. "Why do you ask?"

"I want to help you but all I can do right now is heal you and read the map in the Arena. We might not find any Mystic Codes that do other things so I was just wondering if they were actually necessary or if I'd be able to do other kinds of spells anyway."

"I'll admit right now that I'm not the best person to talk to about this since I'm not a magus and the only knowledge I have was gained through observation of others but I know that it's doable," Archer said, trying to recall what she knew about the topic in question. "The problem is getting the information that you need to learn from. I seriously doubt any of the other Masters would be willing to teach you and I don't really know anything about actually using thaumaturgy. A Caster would almost certainly be knowledgeable enough but there's still the issue of finding one who's actually willing to help."

"I thought as much," Harry muttered, stifling a yawn as all of the walking he had done that day started to catch up with him. However, he couldn't stop the next yawn from escaping him and he decided that he should probably get some sleep. Placing his glasses out of the way, he moved under the covers but found that he just couldn't get comfortable. He spent the next few minutes shuffling around until a thought occurred to him and he glanced over to his Servant, who had since sat down on one of the desks at the side of the room and was currently having a closer look at the Trigger.

"Archer?" the child began, only to trail off afterwards. He was eight years old and an eight-year-old was supposed to be able to sleep by themselves. What would she think if he asked her to get in the bed because he couldn't get comfy on his own? Besides, he had only slept with her twice and he didn't think that was enough to develop a dependency or whatever the word was, regardless of how relaxing it was to have her so close by.

"Yes?" she asked, putting the cipher key down since she had given up trying to figure it out.

"Um… Uh…" the young Master mumbled, his mind quickly trying to come up with a way to get the outcome he wanted that didn't involve Archer thinking that he was pathetic. "Where are you sleeping?" he eventually asked, wondering if he could steer the conversation the way he wanted without her picking up on it.

"I'm not really sure yet," the Servant of the bow replied, doing her best to hide her amusement. It had only taken her a few seconds to figure out the situation, the fact that he had moved over to the other side of the bed and left a gap next to him that was easily big enough for her had been a pretty big clue, and she found it more than a little humorous. "I think the bed would be the best place since it'd be far more comfortable than anywhere else. You don't mind sharing again, do you?" She almost smiled when she saw him try to hide the happiness he felt at her comment.

"No, I don't mind at all," Harry said as he practically threw the duvet to one side for her.

Once again fighting the urge to smile at her Master's actions, Archer hopped to her feet and allowed her gloves and stockings to disappear during the short walk to the bed. She slid into the space left for her without problem and gently pulled the child close to her. "If you want to spend the nights like this, you just need to ask." The expression on Harry's face when she revealed that she had seen through his plan was a bit too much for her and she let out a brief laugh. "No matter what you may want from me, you should never feel ashamed to ask. Good night, Harry."

"Good night, Archer," he replied as he snuggled against her warmth, sleeping finally claiming him.

* * *

 **A/N: Not much to say here apart from that, in light of a few people commenting that Harry is weak or useless as a Master, I have added a little bit to the end of the author's note at the end of the prologue to address this (I put it there so new readers can see it straight away). For those who don't feel like going back to look, the basic gist is that while Harry is indeed quite weak and generally useless as a Master right now aside from being able to do minor healing, he is gradually going to develop into a competent Master able to pull his own weight over the course of the story. It's not going to be an overnight change but it is going to happen.**


End file.
